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Finding a good parking spot is often one of the biggest obstacles when visiting downtown Denver. To help attract more visitors to the city center, the mayor’s office just announced a pilot program for affordable parking spots throughout downtown this summer.
The City of Denver and parking reservation app SpotHero have partnered with a handful of lot operators to offer $5 parking at thousands of downtown spots. The project, dubbed “Mayor Park $5,” starts Monday, June 29, and runs through the end of September.
Mayor Mike Johnston calls the program a “win for everyone.”
“It makes parking easier to find and afford, it encourages people to enjoy downtown, and it fills up spaces that might otherwise sit empty,” he says in a statement announcing the program. “I’m grateful to the vendors and, especially, to SpotHero for their partnership in helping us lower costs for Denverites.”
While there’s a small fee involved and some rules to the promotion, it’s no bait and switch. Find out more below:
How to find $5 parking this summer
The pilot program will launch with approximately 3,000 parking spaces at lots across downtown, although as many as 5,000 could be available by the end of summer, according to the mayor’s office. A map (see it below) shows the $5 parking area extends from Wazee Street to Broadway, and 14th Street to 20th Street, right next to Coors Field.
To partake in the $5 program, you’ll have to download the SpotHero app or book a spot through its website during the promo period. There is a 99-cent service fee to book a spot, but the promo code MILEHIGH5 will waive the fee. (The code will change throughout the summer and “is subject to availability,” according to the announcement.)
The reduced parking rate is available “from morning to late afternoon” on Mondays and Fridays and every weeknight after 4 p.m. (just in time for happy hour.) You can also park for up to 12 hours on Saturdays and Sundays for $5 through the promotion.
Getting people downtown
The mayor’s office calls Mayor Park $5 a “first-of-its-kind” initiative to fill empty parking lots and bring more visitors to downtown Denver, which could use the public positivity.
Commercial vacancies and restaurant closures in downtown Denver have increased dramatically since the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Colorado commercial real estate broker CBRE, downtown had a 38.9 percent office vacancy rate in the first quarter of 2026. Giant office towers are selling for fractions of what they cost less than a decade ago, and the Wall Street Journal recently labeled downtown Denver “America’s emptiest downtown.” The recent closures of Rock Bottom Brewery and the original 1UP didn’t help, either.
The City of Denver has spent millions of dollars and thousands of worker hours to bring people back to downtown in the wake of the pandemic, completing a years-long reconstruction of 16th Street (formerly 16th Street Mall) and acquiring the Denver Pavilions mall in late 2025. Various art installations and live entertainment activations have also been funded or aided by the city in an effort to revitalize the area.
In addition to parking challenges, safety concerns and homelessness are often cited on social media as reasons why people avoid downtown. Data shows that both issues are trending in the right direction, however. In Denver Police Department District 6, which includes all of downtown, property crime dropped nearly 28% from 2022 to 2025, while violent crime went down 2%. DPD data shows that both categories had fallen in the area of 16th Street, specifically, as of April 2026.
According to the annual Point-In-Time Count — a regional headcount of all homeless individuals during one night in January — Denver experienced a 64% reduction in street homelessness from 2023 to 2026, the lowest on record since county-specific data became available in 2017.
Now, if only the Rockies could win a few games…
Denver Mayor’s Office
