Grove business owners believe valet parking attracts well-heeled customers, but some residents bemoan the loss of coveted on-street parking.
When Susan Silver drives the few blocks from her home into Coconut Grove’s business district to dine, shop or run errands, the prospect of parking puts her on edge.
More often than not, she says, she circles the village core – Virginia Street, Grand Avenue, Commodore Plaza, Main Highway – and the only open curb spots are those cordoned off for use by private valet contractors.
“Sometimes, I see the valet guys taking three, four spaces but no one is pulling up to valet park their cars,” Silver told the Spotlight. “It’s aggravating.”
Sam Dobrow, another Grove resident, believes valet service should be part of the overall parking mix in the village center, but also acknowledges it as an indulgence reserved for the privileged few. Valet rates start at $20, plus tip.
“The biggest problem in the Grove is parking,” Dobrow says. “Once you find a spot, you may not be anywhere near the places you want to patronize.”
Like Silver, Dobrow wonders if demand for valet parking is sufficient to justify removing the spaces from the public use. “We don’t know how often people are valeting their cars,” Dobrow says, shrugging at the prospect of any larger solution. “I think it’s too late to fix parking in the Grove.”
Miami Parking Authority, or MPA, the semi-autonomous city agency in charge of public parking, doesn’t know either, saying they don’t keep track of how many people are using valet services. But renting out on-street spaces to Coconut Grove restaurants and businesses, which in turn contract with private valet companies, is a revenue source for the agency.
In a typical arrangement, business owners will apply to the MPA for permission to lease abutting curb spots, and then contract the valet service to private operators. The designated curb spaces are rarely used for actual parking, instead serving as a drop-off spot where drivers pull up before an attendant can ferry the car to a remote lot.
MPA charges business owners a modest fee of $20 per space, per day. The leased spaces are removed from the available pool of on-street parking, even in off hours when valet contracts suspend daily operations, and when street parking is otherwise free. The authority oversees a total of 656 public parking spaces in Coconut Grove, including those set aside for valet.
In fiscal year 2021, the MPA designated six spaces for valet service that generated $6,960 in revenue. The following fiscal year, the authority increased the number of valet spaces to 16 and collected $55,110. In fiscal year 2023, the Grove’s valet parking spaces grew to 19, generating $83,490. Since the beginning of this year, the MPA closed off another seven on-street spaces for valet.
Those revenues don’t remain in Coconut Grove, instead mingling with other MPA funds. MPA officials declined to provide a breakdown of the agency’s expenses.
Anyone may use the valet services – not just customers of the restaurant or business they front.
Currently, valet contractors are operating from six on-street spaces on Main Highway, four spaces on Commodore Plaza, and three each on Grand Avenue and Virginia Street. (MPA executive director Alejandra Argudin declined repeated requests for comment from the Spotlight).
Overall, the MPA’s Coconut Grove zone has 26 on-street parking spaces used solely for valet parking service, which also includes Dinner Key’s Regatta Harbour, the headquarters of the development firm Related Group at 2850 Tigertail Avenue, and Glass & Vine restaurant within Peacock Park on McFarlane Road.
Angel Diaz Jr, the MPA’s director of operations, told the Spotlight via email that the authority has no plans to convert more spaces to valet, but also says new applications from business owners are welcome. The MPA does not seek input from Grove residents about valet parking, Diaz says. He refutes residents’ complaints that the valet program makes it harder to find parking in the center Grove.
“Valet can turn over more cars than traditional parking can,” Diaz says.
Mark Burns, executive director of the Coconut Grove Business Improvement District (BID), a city agency charged with promoting the Grove’s commercial sector, agrees.
“My thought is that valet parking is a crucial amenity for businesses in the Grove,” he says, emphasizing that the service enhances accessibility and convenience. “The challenge is maintaining its affordability while ensuring its availability for our valued patrons.”
(The BID is partially funded by MPA, receiving a share of revenue from the public parking lot at Regatta Park. It also receives City of Miami funds from the parking-waiver fees that local businesses and other property owners pay to avoid city parking requirements).
Valet stands aside, public parking remains a fraught subject among Grove residents. A long-promised public garage at the site of the Coconut Grove Playhouse is years behind schedule – if it’s built at all. And many locals still bristle over MPA’s decision to sell its Oak Avenue Garage to a private developer (Coconut Grove’s Terra Group) for conversion to office space in 2016, further depleting the village of public parking options.
Two years later, community leaders balked at plans for an increased valet presence in the Grove, prompting then-MPA chief Art Noriega (now Miami City Manager) to announce the formation of a Parking Valet taskforce to study the subject.
Former Coconut Grove Village Council member Javier Gonzalez (now a community liaison for District 2 commissioner Damian Pardo), was appointed as a community representative to the group but says the taskforce, despite his repeated inquiries, never convened.
An added source of irritation among many long-time residents is the growing number of curb spaces within the Grove’s busy commercial core that have been converted, often at business owners’ request, to no-parking loading zones.
In addition to MPA-leased valet spaces throughout the village center, privately operated lots at Grove Garden Condominium and St. Stephen’s School, both on Main Highway, also offer valet services for public use.
Few business owners would speak with the Spotlight about valet services in the Grove. Francesco Balli and Ignacio Garcia-Menocal, principals of Grove Bay Hospitality Group, which owns Glass & Vine and an ownership stake in Regatta Harbour, declined to be interviewed for this story. Spokespersons for Cocowalk, Major Food Group, which owns Sadelle’s, and Red Farm, which is owned by restaurateurs Jeffrey and Zach Chodorow, did not respond to text and email messages seeking comment.
The Coconut Grove business and property owners promoting their valet services contract with three companies – Paradise Parking Systems, DEC Parking Way and MP Parking – all of which declined to speak with a Spotlight reporter.
Steve Capellini, a member of the Coconut Grove Village Council and a co-owner of Atchana’s Homegrown Thai Restaurant, a few doors down from the valet station on Commodore Plaza, recognizes that public curbside parking’s rising demand and shrinking availability is a recipe for conflict. But he thinks valet parking, on the whole, is part of the solution, not the problem.
“In the Grove, there is a lot of controversy about not having enough parking,” Capellini said. “In places like Coral Gables and Brickell, to have valet parking is a positive thing, and we agree. In general, we feel good about it.”
Capellini said he often directs his restaurant customers down the street to the private valet stand. But he questions the MPA’s all-or-nothing leasing approach which ties up spaces even during times of low valet demand.
Why not measure peak and off-peak usage – data MPA doesn’t collect – and convert spaces back to public use during times of low demand, he asks. “They set up a place and take up a few spaces,” Capellini said. “The number of customers goes up and down, the valet spaces remain the same.”
To Alex Falco, co-owner of Minty Z, a pan Asian restaurant on Grand Avenue at McDonald Street, the valet parking kerfuffle is much ado about nothing. Falco says converting valet stands back to public spaces won’t move the needle on parking within a village core buzzing with new restaurants, shops and office space.
“Parking is always an issue,” Falco said. “I don’t think valet spaces are a big reason for it. Customers will complain about struggling to find parking, but no one has specifically mentioned valet spaces to us.”
Falco may not hear complaints from his customers, but many Grove residents share the same views as Judy Williams, a Coconut Grove resident since 1998, who fumes at the sight of valet stands occupying the curbside spots she once frequented.
“I hate it,” she said. “There are too many of them.”
The Parking issue also affects residents with disabilities. Some people cannot walk very far, others, like me, have a compromised immune system and can’t have a Valet drive my car for fear that the previous car owner has Covid or any illness that can be passed on. The closing of Fuller Street, for no apparant useful purpose, also took away 16 very convenient parking spaces, but most of all it cut off a MAJOR artery in the Grove by forcing people to go all the way down Grand to Mary to circle around to find a parking space. This has got to hurt the center businesses since it provided quick parking to go into many of the stores during the day. Why can’t it be open all week (every time I pass by it is totally deserted) and have the sign turned to block the street after 9 pm on Friday and Saturday nights? If it had proved to be a “plaza similar to Giralda in the Gables” this closure would make sense but that concept failed miserably!!! I am very disappointed to learn that the MPA and the BID are using capitalistic reasoning for the lack of spaces instead of being empathetic and caring about residents that have physical imparments and need these spaces as well as shoppers that just want to spend money in the retails stores in the Grove.
I am always curious where valet services actually park the cars and how safe they are. There
was a time when they purposely “forgot” to lock the cars. When u get in your car you don’t check the glove compartment or the trunk. I realize you shouldn’t leave valuables in your car but even a charger could be missing and you wouldn’t know until you need it.
We should have door to door Freebee for everyone over 18 yrs old just like the Gables, Pinecrest and Key Biscayne.
Excellent article, much needed. Yes, the situation is fraught. Two suggestions: (1) I agree that we have too many valet parking spaces which remove curbside public parking spots.
Also we should provide attended bicycle valet parking with discounts to people who bike to Grove businesses. Make sure that all valet parking revenues collected in Coconut Grove are used to improve the Grove’s business environment.