Pacific Fair to open boom gates on paid parking for staff and shoppers on Gold Coast

BOOM gates have been installed and the verdict is in. Shoppers and staff are not happy at news that yet another southeast Queensland shopping centre will introduce paid parking at the end of the month.

SHOPPERS who spend more than three hours at Pacific Fair will be forced to pay for parking from June 27.

More than 1200 full and part-time workers employed at the centre will also be slugged $4 to use an outdoor staff car park on the centre’s rooftop every time they clock on for work.

Event Cinema patrons will be able to park for free for four hours, while people who enter the car park after 6pm will not be charged.

Boom gates and ticket machines have been installed at the Broadbeach complex but centre management is yet to reveal how much shoppers will be slugged to stay longer than three hours.

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“Pacific Fair will introduce a controlled parking system in late June, which will include a parking guidance system and paid parking for customers and staff,” senior marketing manager Linda Frewin said.

Boom gates at Pacific Fair. Picture: Richard Gosling

“A parking guidance system allows customers better navigation, in a more secure, well-lit and actively monitored environment.”

Pacific Fair has 6500 parking spaces after adding an extra 1300 parks as part of its massive $670 million redevelopment, due for completion later this year.

The new-look Pacific Fair Shopping Centre at Broadbeach.

The centre’s owners, AMP Capital, say the move is necessary because too many light rail commuters are profiting from free parking at the centre. Paid parking is a huge money-spinner for AMP Capital, which boasts a portfolio of 28 shopping centres in Australia.

Ms Frewin said the three-hour free parking limit was “one of the more generous free periods offered in a controlled parking environment on the Gold Coast”.

Boom gates at Pacific Fair. Picture: Richard Gosling

“Research tells us that the vast majority of our customers visit the centre for significantly less than three hours,” she said.

“Most shopping centres in southeast Queensland as well as the Broadbeach and Surfers Paradise precincts have long established controlled parking environment”.

David Jones at the new-look Pacific Fair Shopping Centre at Broadbeach.

Centre management outlined its parking plans to tenants in March, saying the move was necessary to deter non-customers leaving their cars in the shopping centre for 10 or 12 hours a day while they caught the tram to work.

Shoppers and workers have taken to social media to voice their anger at the charges.

“We are here to work and cannot afford $1000 plus a year thanks,” Nathan Durrant wrote in a Facebook post.

The new-look Pacific Fair Shopping Centre at Broadbeach. Pictured is the section known as The Resort.

Another worker Vanessa wrote: “Going to hurt me who gets paid a whopping $20.15 an hour.”

Customers say the new charge is “a bit rich” as there are often long delays for traffic entering and exiting the centre’s reconfigured car parks.

Others say paid parking is the “final straw” and have vowed to bypass Pacific Fair for sites with free parking, such as Robina Town Centre.

A Tiffany & Co. store has opened at the newly renovated Pacific Fair, Broadbeach. Pictured: Model Anna Pembroke. Photo: Jerad Williams