Last year, the city launched a plan to create new Music Venue Zone parking spots to help bands dealing with load in and load out and help foster the city’s neighborhood live music scenes. Now the program is launching and City Hall is looking for Capitol Hill venues to join the program and add the signs and street markings to Pike/Pine’s maze of parking restrictions.
Qualifying music venues can apply for one annual Music Venue Zone permit each, creating up to three designated spaces at the curb, which SDOT will install. Music Venue Zones allow parking and loading 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with a valid permit displayed.
To qualify for the permit, music venues must:
- Have a valid City of Seattle business license
- Host live music events at least two different days each week
- Charge a fee for entry for live music events
If your venue qualifies, you can now apply here for a Music Venue Zone permit.
CHS reported here on the legislative efforts to create the program last fall.
The new permits will cost venues $250 a year and the legislation has established rules limiting where they can be deployed. Each permit allows up to three Music Venue Zone
spaces per venue. Restrictions on parking and loading will be 24 hours a day, 7-days
a week. Vehicles in zones without the valid permit displayed will be subject to citation and impound, the city says.
The program will only displace around 60 street parking spots around the city but many will be in the heart of Pike/Pine which was identified as a core area for the program by a council staff analysis.
The city says the loss of the spaces will cost it around $178,000 a year — a tiny fraction of the $41.7 million of parking meter revenue it expects to generate this year from the approximately 11,000 paid on-street parking spaces in Seattle.
Learn more at seattle.gov.
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