Parking Management

Downtown Parking Sign

About Parking Management

Parking Management consists of the Parking Manager and two parking enforcement workers. The parking enforcement workers monitor parking in downtown parking lots and on downtown streets from First Street to Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive and from Glick Highway to Wesley Street. The Police Department also monitors parking downtown along with the entire city. Downtown public parking is enforced Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Parking is free on evenings, weekends and all holidays observed by City of Jackson employees. 

Parking is prohibited on all downtown streets between the hours of 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. Disability plates/placards are not exempt from this prohibition.

Public Parking: Lots, Structures and On-Street

The City of Jackson also owns two parking decks that are operated just like the permit parking lots. As with the surface lots when permit parking is posted, the permit parking is reserved between 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Permit lots and the parking decks are available for public parking overnight from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. and on weekends. Lot # 3, north of the YMCA, is also a Pay-to-Park lot at $2.00 per day. It is cash only and the pay box is on the south end of the lot by the disability spaces. Please see Municipal Parking Interactive Map for all parking regulations, including timed and permit parking. 

Permits

For information on daily, monthly or annual permits, please see the Permits and Rates page. These permits are color-coded for specific parking lots or parking decks. Permit parking and visitor parking spaces are identified by signs in each of the lots. Permit parking is reserved between 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.

Disability Parking

Drivers with any valid, state-issued disability plates/placards on their vehicles are welcome to park as long as necessary in all visitor areas of the city lots and on city streets. Limited disability parking spaces are provided on the city streets due to possible unsafe entry and exit from the vehicle by the disabled driver.

Parking Tickets

Please see the Parking Tickets page for fines, fees, appeals and payment options.

Downtown Employee Parking

There is now a free lot for downtown employees! Lot 9A is at the corner of Cortland St and Martin Luther King Jr Dr. It is the Brown Lot on the Municipal Parking Interactive Map.

Parking Lot 9A sign

2 hour parking in Downtown Jackson 

In March 2023, verbiage was added to the 2-hr parking signs located in Downtown Jackson that reads “In This Block.” This means that you can park within a given block for 2-hrs. The 2-hrs includes if you leave and return to the same block; your time does not reset.

  • This includes both sides of the street within a given block.
  • Blocks are determined by the address numbers and directions (Example: 100’s, 200’s, North, South, East and West).
  • If you park in the 100 block of W. Michigan Ave (Michigan from Jackson St. to Mechanic) you can only do so for 2-hrs.
  • You can move to another block and reset your time. For instance, you could move to Jackson Street either North or South of Michigan Ave. and you would be in a different block, or, you could move to the 200 Block of W. Michigan between Blackstone and Jackson St. and you would be in a different block.
  • Once you have parked in a block for 2 hours on a given day, you cannot return to that same block on that day.
  • You do have the option of parking in one of the City’s lots which will also reset your time. Lot #6 is 2-hr parking (on Cortland by the Bus Station), Lot #8 is 2-hr parking (between Michigan and Cortland next to Lean Rocket Lab) or, Lot #5 3-hr parking (corner of Pearl and Mechanic by the Farmers Market).
  • Moving down a spot or two would keep you in the same block and would subject you to a possible citation.
  • When you park in a 2-hr space this is when your 2-hrs start for that block. If you leave and return, even if you were not there 2-hrs, your time is from when you first arrived in that block.

A sign about 2 hour parking with times and days

Parking Documents