Towson Town Center is responding to shoppers’ complaints about parking with state-of-the-art technology in multi-deck garages designed to help drivers find and remember spots.
Renovations, completed in time for the holiday shopping season, include color-coded parking decks and signage that displays the number of open spaces in each deck, level and row. A “Park Assist” system alerts customers to available parking spaces through overhead red and green lights. The 1.2 million-square-foot mall, which has 4,400 parking spaces, is the only shopping center in the state with the system, mall officials said Tuesday.
Customers have identified parking as a major “pain point” of their shopping experience, mall officials said. Under the new system, time spent looking for parking fell 44 percent, the mall said, while the number of drivers searching more than five minutes fell 12 percent.
“We have an entirely redesigned parking system that is significantly more intuitive to navigate, will lessen inconveniences and reduce the amount of time to get in and out of Towson Town Center,” Lisa Bisenius, the mall’s senior general manager, said in the announcement.
The 185-store mall which gets 10 million visitors a year, according to owner General Growth Properties, also remodeled mall entrances, enclosed bridges from parking decks to the center, enhanced lighting and updated signage, adding 1,600 standardized signs, including at all major entrances.
The mall also announced several new retailers including Sports Etc., Rainbow and Foamcity. Other tenants opening in coming months include The Brass Tap, Lou Lou, Riley Rose, and Lolli & Pops and food court eatery Indie Bowl.