On a busy weekend afternoon in Olde Town, Grandview Avenue and Yukon Street fill up and drivers circle the block. Down the hill, a few hundred spaces in a free garage sit empty.
Arvada's own numbers show it. A 2025 city study found that Olde Town parking runs at 92% occupancy during peak hours, which the city defines as noon to 2 p.m. and 5 to 8 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekends. That figure leaves out the 600-space Olde Town Transit Hub garage. In the same peak hours, the garage was only 35% full.
So Olde Town doesn't have a capacity problem. It has a "people can't find the garage" problem. That's why the paid-parking plan stalled in September, and it's what the city is working on now.
The math behind the circling
Arvada transportation planning manager Kellee Van Bruggen summed it up for The Denver Post in September 2026: "Utilization on the street is very high in the peak hours, and usage in the garage is very low." The same story counts about 440 on-street spaces left in Olde Town, after 50 were removed when the city created the pandemic-era pedestrian zone.
Here are the two pools side by side:
| Spaces | Peak occupancy | What that means at peak | |
|---|---|---|---|
| On-street, Olde Town | About 440 | 92% of district parking, garage excluded | Very few open curb spots |
| Olde Town Transit Hub garage | 600 | 35% | Roughly 390 open spaces |
At its busiest, the garage has close to as many empty spaces as Olde Town has curb spaces in total. Off-peak, the district's street and lot parking runs between 68% and 82%. The usual industry trigger for paid parking is 85% occupancy, so the crunch really happens in those weekday lunch and dinner windows and on weekends. Most of the rest of the week, Olde Town parks fine.
Why a 600-space garage stays hidden
The Hub hides partly by design. The builders set it into the hill at the south end of Olde Town, below the G Line tracks, so it wouldn't stand up as a concrete box at street level. "It's so well camouflaged, people can't find it," Councilmember Bob Fifer told The Denver Post.
The tracks also sit between the garage and the shops, so the walk from your car into Olde Town isn't obvious. At the council's September study session, members listed three problems with the garage: hard-to-find entrances, safety concerns, and poor access for people with limited mobility.
That's why the garage matters so much to whatever comes next for parking in Olde Town. If the free spaces stay hard to find, charging for curb spaces doesn't send drivers anywhere useful.
What the city proposed, and why it paused
The city has studied Olde Town parking since at least 2010 and first recommended a paid model in 2016. The 2026 plan, as the city described it, would have used an app instead of meters, so payment could be switched on only during the busiest times of day. The garage would have stayed free. Arvada's parking program, which covers maintenance, signage, and enforcement, had a 2026 budget of $545,092 paid from general tax dollars. A city spokesperson told Arvada Press paid parking was meant to cover those costs, "not intended to be a revenue generator."
Olde Town business owners raised concerns at an August 27 community meeting. Several pointed to the empty garage spaces. "The garage isn't full," said Debbie Hansen, owner of La Dolce Vita Coffee Shop.
At the September 15, 2026 study session, council told staff to pause paid parking and focus on the Hub garage and on access around the historic district. Councilmember Shawna Ambrose put it plainly:
"We have to solve the parking garage issue … before we do any paid parking. If we try to implement paid parking without solving where you can park for free, it's just not going to work."
Council members also said nearby residents had worried about overflow parking on their own streets. Councilmember Sharon Davis praised an alternative Hansen raised at two public meetings: make the first two or four hours free and charge after that. Hansen said it's similar to Golden's approach, where the first two hours are free.
The pause was direction given at a study session, not a final vote, and the issue may come back. Fifer said he could support pausing to fix the garage but "would not stop this effort," since the parking issue has been growing for more than a decade. The city's survey closed September 9 with 4,000 responses. Communications director Rachael Kuroiwa said staff would share the results with council after a fuller review, and that "there is no next meeting or deadline to bring paid parking back to City Council." As of October 10, I haven't seen any published survey results or a new council date. For now, the pause still holds.
The garage fixes being prototyped
The city's next steps all aim at the Hub. Staff identified 10 areas to improve, with the goal of making the garage "more inviting and safer for visitors to use." Two of them have names:
- Southern Gateway. This would invest in the garage itself so it "feels more like a genuine gateway into Olde Town," Van Bruggen said, rather than a barrier.
- Park and Earn. This would be a possible rewards program for Olde Town employees, visitors, or both when they park at the Hub.
Van Bruggen said both ideas are "in the prototyping phase." Fifer told The Denver Post the city will also work on wayfinding signs so people know the garage exists and how to get from it into Olde Town.
Where Arvada fits on the Front Range
Arvada isn't the only city working through this. Longmont, Littleton, and Louisville keep downtown street parking free, though time limits are common. Morrison, Golden, Idaho Springs, and Manitou Springs have all moved to paid parking in recent years. Golden started charging in 2013, partly because Colorado School of Mines students were using Washington Avenue as a free parking lot.
For now, Olde Town remains one of the free downtowns. How long that lasts depends largely on whether the Hub becomes a garage people actually use.
Parking in Olde Town this fall
The current rules and options, based on recent reporting:
- Use the Hub at 7510 Grandview Ave. Enter from Vance Street or Olde Wadsworth Boulevard. Visit Arvada says its 600 spaces are shared by RTD riders and Olde Town visitors. As of September 20, The Denver Post reported both the garage and a nearby city surface lot as free. I couldn't confirm a garage time limit or overnight rule, so check the posted signs.
- Keep an eye on the clock at the curb. Olde Town street spaces generally have two- or four-hour limits from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. When time runs out, 9News reports, you have to move your car at least 500 feet.
- Know the paid option. The Arvada Elks South lot at 57th and Yukon is open to the public at $6 for the first two hours and $2 for each hour after that. Its North lot is for members only.
- Plan around the peak windows. Weekday lunch, weekday dinner, and weekend daytime are when curb spaces run 92% full. Those are good times to head straight to the Hub.
Two dates on the calendar will test the garage. Trick or Treat Street runs October 30 from 5 to 7 p.m., right inside the weekday dinner peak, and this year adds classic-car trunk-or-treating and a free haunted house at the Jaycees House on Yukon Street. Then on December 6, Silver Vines Winery at 7509 Grandview Avenue holds its 15th anniversary party from 2 to 6 p.m. The winery has announced it will close its Arvada location at the end of 2026. The winery sits right on Grandview, and the Hub is just down the hill.
If you live near Olde Town and want to know how district changes like parking rules, overflow onto side streets, or a renovated Hub could affect your block, Laura Ruch is happy to talk it through and keep you posted as the city releases its survey results. Let's Connect.
