Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas announces pay-to-park program

Saying it is tired of being used as a free self-parking garage for competing hotels, the officials at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas have announced they, too, will charge guests to park at the resort.

Formally announced today, the hotel will charge for self-parking and valet in early 2017, the specific date yet to be announced. Charges will be $7 for 1-4 hours, $10 for 4-24 hours, and $10 for 24 hours or longer. There are no discounts for Nevada residents. Special pricing might apply during events and peak periods. The event pricing time block would be from 4 p.m.-11 p.m. (for a full rundown of the program, go to www.cosmpolitanlasvegas.com/parking).

A tier-based system is to be enacted at a date to be announced, with members of the hotel’s Identity Membership and Rewards program who have reached Sterling status or higher eligible for free self-parking. Members who have achieved Gold status or higher are eligible for free valet parking, both subject to availability.

With today’s announcement, Cosmopolitan follows MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment and Wynn Las Vegas resort companies requiring guests a fee to park. Cosmpolitan President and Chief Executive Officer Bill McBeath says the hotel was prepared to act after monitoring the activity in its own underground self-parking garage.

“I don’t like to be a follower, but we have now been impacted by our competitors’ charging for parking,” McBeath says. “We already have metered parking with red-light, green-light meters, and we have all this information stored digitally. All of our slots are red (or, occupied) with an increase in people parking in our building, but no corresponding increase in business levels that would be associated with that parking.”

McBeath said that recent announcements, on successive days Nov. 29-30, that Caesars Entertainment and Wynn Las Vegas planned to charge for parking made the Cosmopolitan’s concerns only more pronounced.

“We are a repository for their programs, and this latest phase will make it unbearable for us,” McBeath said. “We only have 3,700 spaces here, and 80-90 percent of our employees park off-site and are shuttled back and forth. Parking is not a luxury for us. We have the minimum amount parking, by code, you can have in this building. We can’t afford to have people not spending money in our building parking here because our neighbors have kicked them out of their garages through their fee structure.”

As Caesars and Wynn announced their respective pay-to-park programs, officials at Las Vegas Sands (which owns Venetian and Palazzo), Boyd Gaming and Station Casinos all said they currently had no plans to charge for parking.

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section, and Fridays in Neon. He also hosts “Kats! On The Radio” Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on KUNV 91.5-FM and appears Wednesdays at 11 a.m. with Dayna Roselli on KTNV Channel 13. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.