No More Free Parking for Cherry Creek Mall Employees

Cherry Creek Shopping Center first announced it would charge customers to park in its multi-level parking garage after the first hour in 2017, and it's only snowballed since.

In 2020, that window of freedom narrowed to the first fifteen minutes of parking, after which customers would be charged $2 for up to two hours, with each additional hour costing $2, with a maximum daily rate of $16.

Employees of the mall's many stores, eateries and eight-screen movie theater didn't have to pay for parking at their own jobs, at least. Until now.

A notice from Cherry Creek Shopping Center management notified all mall workers who use the parking garage that they must now pay for a parking pass. The charge will be assessed monthly, to the tune of $20 per month if paid online or $25 per month if paid at the mall's parking center. That adds up to between $240 and $300 per year.

If an employee's parking fee is not paid by the fifth day of any given month, their parking pass will be frozen until full payment is made, according to the notice.

Registration for paid employee parking began March 1 and will last through March 31; the monthly charges start in April. Current mall employees had to pay a $30 deposit to obtain a pass for free monthly parking, however, and that deposit went toward their monthly fees.

Cherry Creek Shopping Center's management doesn't view this change as a new fee, but as the expiration of a perk that employees have been enjoying for years.

"Free parking for our tenant employees was always intended to be a short-term benefit," says Michael Wilson, the mall's general manager. "We offered it when we originally implemented our paid parking program. Free tenant parking is not a benefit widely offered at other businesses in the Cherry Creek neighborhood, other than those retailers who choose to pay for their employees’ parking. Many of those spaces are significantly more per month."

Other retailers in Cherry Creek don't have a massive indoor parking garage and outside lots like the mall does, however.