Pay to park is coming to The Mall in Columbia

If mall shoppers don’t want to go searching for a parking spot on a crowded weekend afternoon in Columbia, a paid solution is coming soon.

Beginning Monday, 120 parking spots at The Mall in Columbia will become preferred parking, meaning you’ll have to pay to park your car.

The preferred parking spots, near the mall’s restaurant row and Main Event, an arcade entertainment complex, will cost $2.45 for an hour, $6.45 for three hours and $10.45 for four hours or more.

Lindsay Kahn, a spokesperson for mall owner GGP, said parking complaints are consistent across its nearly 100 malls. To mitigate this agitation, the company adopted this approach to parking.

“The preferred parking spots are for those who know where they want to go, run in and out, or they don’t want to look around looking for a spot,” Kahn said. “We are just trying to ease a frequent customer pain point.”

But customers shouldn’t fret, Kahn said. Over 6,000 parking spots will remain free. The mall has 6,675 total spots.

There’s no plan to add fees to additional spots, Kahn said.

At every GGP property with preferred parking, the mall’s team chooses a charity, Kahn said.

These paid parking spots will benefit Grassroots Crisis Intervention center. Ten percent of each sale will go to the nonprofit, which specializes in 24-hour crisis support, emergency shelter services and walk-in counseling.