Downtown Puyallup is getting more than a dozen new parking spaces, as the city transforms two long-underused lots at 313 W. Meeker into a public parking area expected to be substantially completed this fall. The $470,000 project will add 14 new spaces, including one ADA-accessible spot, along with sidewalks, landscaping, energy-efficient lighting, and pavement designed to manage stormwater.
The land itself has a two-decade backstory. Puyallup bought the property from a private party in 2005 for $125,000, according to The News Tribune. Construction on the parking project began in July, and the Puyallup City Council set aside roughly $572,000 for the work back in May.
City engineering manager Drew Young said the project marks another step toward expanding convenient public parking downtown. The lot, per the outlet's reporting, is meant to create a space for both residents and visitors, complementing planned angled parking along Third Avenue as well as Sound Transit's parking garage near the station.
Designing In-House Cut Costs Substantially
City engineer Lance Hollingsworth said hiring a third-party firm to design the project would have pushed the overall cost closer to $1 million. Handling the design in-house, he said, reduced the project cost substantially and allowed the city to finish the work faster than an outside contract likely would have. The lot is described as part of a broader, ongoing effort to improve parking access across downtown Puyallup.
That broader effort has deep roots in downtown's geography and regulatory landscape. The 313 W. Meeker site sits within Mount Rainier's designated volcanic lahar hazard zone, which triggered a formal municipal review in April 2023 over environmental building restrictions. A hearing examiner memorandum at the time clarified that using the site for municipal employee parking did not run afoul of Puyallup Municipal Code rules barring new “essential facilities” in lahar zones, since the lot was not designed as a primary emergency vehicle storage site, according to the City of Puyallup.
A Downtown Squeezed by Transit and Events
The new lot is a modest addition next to Sound Transit's much larger investment nearby. In March 2023, the agency opened a $60.2 million expansion at Puyallup Station that added a 510-space garage and 163 surface spaces, bringing the hub's total parking capacity to 1,044 stalls, per Sound Transit. As part of that same project, the agency also gave the city $3.8 million to fund pedestrian and bicycle safety upgrades citywide, including improved ADA curb ramps and bike lanes along West Stewart Avenue and 4th Street NW.
That kind of investment reflects just how much pressure downtown parking has been under. Before the pandemic, Puyallup Station recorded more than 1,600 daily Sounder rail boardings, creating heavy competition for limited downtown spaces among commuters, visitors, and local business patrons, according to The Viking Vanguard. To keep that overflow from spilling into nearby neighborhoods, the city also runs a Residential Parking Permit program offering free four-year permits to residents on blocks with 4-hour timed restrictions.
Freight Trains and Festivals Add to the Crunch
Downtown Puyallup's traffic flow is also shaped by BNSF Railway, which maintains main rail line crossings at Meridian, 4th Street, and 7th Street that periodically experience gate malfunctions and temporary blockages, the city has noted. Add in recurring seasonal surges from major events like the Washington State Fair and Fourth of July celebrations at Pioneer Park, and downtown's public parking infrastructure is regularly pushed close to capacity — a strain Hoodline documented this summer during the holiday weekend crowds.
The city completed a comprehensive Downtown Parking Study in November 2024 to evaluate long-term parking supply, business access, and commuter spillover across the core, giving officials multi-year data to work from as they plan projects like the Meeker lot. The site's stormwater-friendly pavement also traces back further still, to 2008 state Local Infrastructure Financing Tool funding and a later $1.5 million in state capital grants that supported stormwater and transit-oriented development infrastructure around city-owned parking properties on 3rd Street SW.
The Meeker lot's location also sits just blocks from where the Puyallup Police Department's headquarters and public lobby used to be. The department relocated to a $33.7 million leased facility on South Hill in April, a move Hoodline reported was driven by space limitations and the same lahar hazard zone concerns affecting downtown building projects — a shift that pulled routine police station traffic away from the downtown core.
