San Diego International Airport on Friday opened 2,400 more parking spots.
The airport opened up its new five-story T1 Parking Plaza over Labor Day Weekend in late August and just completed its second phase, bringing the total to 5,200 parking spots at the plaza. In total, there are now roughly 8,500 parking spots at the airport.
Completion of the parking plaza marks the first major benefit to the public of the airport’s $3.8 billion remodel, which started in November 2021. The first phase of the new Terminal 1 is set to open around late September, but the whole thing won’t be done until 2028.
It costs $2.50 for 15 minutes in the one-hour parking spots at the new plaza, which totals $10 if you stay the whole hour. It is $38 for the whole day. The maximum time you can stay is 60 days, costing $2,280. If you accidentally turn into the parking plaza, there is a 10-minute grace period.
Travelers can pay for parking at the plaza or reserve spots online ahead of time. One new feature of the plaza is that there are license plate readers — so you can enter your plate online and just pull into the garage without doing anything. The online form stores payment information, so visitors are just charged when they drive out.
There are new signs throughout the road and airport to help travelers find the plaza. If you’re heading west on North Harbor Drive (from downtown toward the airport), get in the right lane and follow the big sign for Terminal 1. Then, follow along the road until you see signs directing vehicles to the left for the parking plaza and to the right for arrivals and departures. If you are traveling east on North Harbor Drive, get in the left lane when you start seeing the Terminal 1 sign, and then follow the signs to parking.
The new parking plaza is very close to both terminals so most engers, especially those with just one carry-on item, probably won’t need a shuttle. Even if you park in the Terminal 1 Parking Plaza, and have to walk to Terminal 2, it is only about 400 feet away. However, there is a free shuttle is called the Terminal Loop Shuttle and it runs daily from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.
There are some features of the airport’s new parking plaza that make it a bit different than your standard parking garage: There are electronic arrows to alert you to open spots, express lanes on the outside of the garage so you don’t have go in circles to find a spot or leave, a rainwater collection system, pillars on the outside that make the structure look kind of like a wave and landscaping around the structure with olive trees.
The airport says it now has 185 spaces for electric vehicle parking, 20 one-hour spots (for quickly picking up or dropping off engers), and 1,023 spots for “clean vehicles,” such as hybrid, electric or hydrogen powered cars.
“We have a significant demand for onsite parking at” the airport, said Regional Airport Authority CEO Kimberly Becker in a news release, “and the opening of stage 2 allows us to better provide that for our customers.”
