Want to Park at the Auraria Campus? You’re Scrooged.

Hark, the herald angels sing…and loudly, of the holy terror it is to find parking at this year’s Denver Christkindlmarket, located on the Auraria Campus for the first time in its 25 years.

The annual German holiday market — which was originally located off the 16th Street Mall in Skyline Park, then moved to Civic Center Park, then relocated this year to the Tivoli Quad because of Civic Center construction — opened on November 21, and while admission is still free, attendees suffered another kind of sticker shock: Parking on Auraria Campus was upwards of $30, and that was before anyone bought their first knödel.

After a not-so-glowing report from 9News, Auraria pivoted quickly, announcing that it was lowering prices to a slightly less-Grinchy level; Christkindlmarket added some visitor tips on reducing the cost of parking on its “Getting to the Market” page. But the suggestions aren’t much of a gift; they’re essentially work-arounds. Yes, prices are lower, mainly before 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday — but you’ll have to stick around for a while, because the lights don’t really come on until evening. Another suggestion is to take public transportation, even though construction has made traveling to campus by either bus or light rail much tougher. And neither of these suggestions might be practical solutions for, say, a family of five wanting to come on a Friday night after work.

Which makes for something of a blue Christmas.

For the record, there are indeed “free” things to do at Christkindlmarket, which is one of few holiday attractions in the city that doesn’t charge for admission to ooh and ahh at the pretty lights. Yes, Virginia, you can wander around and marvel at the internationally festive wares on display, enjoy the scent of cinnamon and pierogies, watch kids enjoy the carousel, and contemplate the pending wonderfulness of Christmas morning. Visit Denver’s Mile High Tree, which also moved from Civic Center to the Tivoli Quad, is beautiful, too, standing ten feet taller than the vaunted Rockefeller Center tree and boasting over 60K LED lights. You can go inside and enjoy the show for free.

For the record, parking at Auraria has never been free; it’s just that now the ridiculous parking situation there is becoming evident to more and more people who want to go there. Parking has has always been a usurious and overly complicated issue on the campus for those who work and matriculate there. If you’re an educator or a student, parking is always expensive and often just plain not available. This isn’t ideal, of course, for a population that’s either trying to make it to a scheduled class on time or just trying, you know, to go do their job.

The Auraria Higher Education Center runs Auraria Parking, and dealing with that outfit is a consistent and expensive hassle for those on campus. That stems from the tri-institutional nature of Auraria itself, which hosts CU Denver, Metro State University and the Community College of Denver. Because no one academic entity owns its own parking facilities, professors and administrators don’t receive free parking as they do at most other universities, and students are even more at the mercy of the parking gods.

The problem, of course, is that AHEC is part of a state system in which parking is viewed as a revenue-generating opportunity. That reality is aggravated by Auraria’s prime location downtown, in close proximity to some major draws: Ball Arena, Empower Field at Mile High and LoDo.

Devra Ashby, Auraria’s director of marketing and communications, told 9News that the campus just raised parking rates — again — in March, after a market survey compared prices at nearby lots. Which sounds reasonable until you consider that those comparable lots are for-profit enterprises, and not, say, measured with a consideration for students and faculty for whom parking is a need and not a want. And bargain-seeking folks looking for free Christmas festivities? They get Scrooged.

The current parking crunch at Auraria also puts Christkindlmarket attendees at odds with those who study and work on the campus — which is unfair to both populations. The grumbling from students and faculty regarding the imposition of the market before the fall semester ended was widespread and sincere. When educators and learners returned from Thanksgiving for a full week of classes followed by another week of finals, they were met by parking facilities already stuffed full. Faculty were not only sometimes late to their own classes, but had to extend grace to students caught up tardy-style in the parking snafu.

As a faculty member at CU Denver, I left an hour early for student conferences on December 2, planning to park, walk to my office and get ready for my scheduled meetings. Turned out that wasn’t enough time: I drove from one parking structure to another, circling vulture-like with many others through aisles absent of spaces for which I was resigned to once again pay through the nose. I finally found a spot after predatorily meandering for a full hour, which made me fifteen minutes late for my first conference. Not a good look — not for me, and not for the campus that ostensibly is there to serve students and university employees.

And things have not gotten better, judging not just from my own experience but a reader who just complained about having to pay $33 last Friday to park for what Westword listed as a “free” event.

With Civic Center construction slated to continue through 2026 and into 2027, more events will be moving to Auraria (Outside Days in May, for example). And we welcome them…as long as AHEC starts thinking ahead about how to handle the hassle of parking. For everyone naughty and nice, for those with visions of sugarplums and those just trying to finish out a fall semester.

Please, Santa: All we want for Christmas is a parking space at a fair price. We can’t all just land on some random roof, you know.