Parking Garage No. 1 at 245 Andalusia Avenue holds 284 spaces, and the city plans to tear it down to make room for the downtown Mobility Hub. Demolition was tentatively set for October, followed by roughly 18 months of construction. That means the stretch behind Miracle Mile will spend most of 2027 under construction.
Under the City of Coral Gables' posted rates, an hour in a municipal garage costs less than an hour at a Miracle Mile meter. The city's economic development director has also said on record that drivers still circle for the street spot anyway. As Garage 1 comes down, the cheaper parking stays open. What's left to change is the habit of skipping it.
The Price List Already Favors the Garages
The city's parking fees page sets garage parking at $1 per 24 minutes, with an $18 daily maximum. On-street meters go up to $3.50 an hour, city-owned lots up to $4.00 an hour, and meters are enforced seven days a week from 9 a.m. to midnight. The city's 2026 downtown parking map also lists valet at $15 and shows a central valet pickup and drop-off point along Miracle Mile.
Here's how those rates play out over a typical downtown visit:
| Where you park | Hourly rate | Two hours | Three hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| City garage | $2.50 | $5.00 | $7.50 |
| On-street meter, top rate | $3.50 | $7.00 | $10.50 |
| City-owned lot, top rate | $4.00 | $8.00 | $12.00 |
The garage hourly figure comes from the $1-per-24-minutes rate. The street and lot figures use the maximums the city posts. Valet, at $15 on the city map, costs more than three hours in a garage. A long dinner followed by a show at the Miracle Theatre comes out roughly $3 cheaper in a garage than at a meter. The garage's $18 daily cap kicks in after about seven hours and 12 minutes, so a full workday downtown also costs less in a garage.
Even the resident discount doesn't change the order. The city's Resident Parking Rate Pilot gives registered residents 25 percent off hourly on-street parking, city lots and specified city-owned garages. With 25 percent off, a $3.50 meter comes to about $2.63 an hour. That's still more than the undiscounted garage rate. The discount runs through PayByPhone or ParkMobile at enabled locations, and the city's program page says the municipal garages were still being upgraded to those systems.
Why 284 Spaces Matter Less Than the Circling
City staff have studied how downtown parkers behave, and their findings point back to that price table. Economic Development Director Belkys Perez told the city's Economic Development Board in August that the city had redrawn its parking map to show how much parking downtown really has, and had surveyed businesses, people who work in the Central Business District, and residents about how they see the parking situation. She summarized one early result in remarks reported by the Coral Gables Gazette:
"There's nothing shocking, it's just everyone has that habit of wanting to park on the street, and it'll circle around until they can find it."
Every driver circling Andalusia and Ponce for a meter is paying more for a spot that's harder to find, while garage space sits a block away. Taking 284 spaces off the map makes the circling worse for anyone who keeps doing it. Drivers who head straight for a garage will mostly just notice a different entrance.
The city's own pitch for the project assumes the same shift. In the Gazette's account, city leaders call the Mobility Hub the first and possibly most important step in upgrading downtown's parking supply. City staff talk about the construction period as a trade between short-term disruption and the promise of more parking and better retail.
Where Garage 1's Cars Are Supposed to Go
At the July 7 City Commission meeting, officials laid out a plan for handling the displaced parking, as the Gazette reported:
- Move city vehicles out of Garage 4 to make room for Garage 1's permit holders.
- Look at valet options for staff and food-delivery traffic.
- Turn a green area near the Davidson property, just north of Seasons 52, into a new lot of about 130 spaces.
Officials said that plan covers most of Garage 1's capacity but not all of it. Roughly 150 spaces would still be unaccounted for during some peak periods. That shortfall will land on the street spots people already circle for, at the busiest hours. It's one more reason to start in a garage.
The schedule has already slipped once, for a reason few people would guess. Garage 1 supplies electricity to part of Miracle Mile through transformers on the site, an arrangement City Manager Peter Iglesias called unusual for a city building. Sorting out the power routing with Florida Power & Light delayed the project, though officials said in July that the issue was largely resolved. By August, FPL was working in the alley, where utility vaults have to be created because power lines serving nearby businesses run into or under the garage. Kaufman Lynn Construction is the project's preconstruction lead, handling scheduling, phasing and coordination. The city's news page is where closure notices go up, so check it for Garage 1's actual closing date.
The Downtown Garages, by Address
Garage 1 is one of five municipal garages the city lists downtown. The other four are not part of the Mobility Hub site:
- Garage 4, 385 Andalusia Avenue. It's on the same street as Garage 1, one block west, and it's the garage the city plans to use for Garage 1's permit holders.
- Garage 2, 220 Aragon Avenue. It's one block north of Miracle Mile, in the Aragon corridor.
- Garage 6, 51 Aragon Avenue. It's at the east end of Aragon, closer to Douglas Road.
- Minorca Garage, 254 Minorca Avenue. It's north of the Giralda and Aragon blocks.
All four charge the same $1 per 24 minutes. The city also runs transient surface lots at 350 Aragon Avenue, 153 Aragon Avenue, 221 Almeria Avenue, 240 Giralda Avenue, 351 Minorca Avenue and 104 Merrick Way. Those lots charge up to $4.00 an hour, so on price they rank below the garages and above nothing.
If you park downtown every day, permits work out to $112.35 a month at Garages 4, 6 and Minorca, compared with $123.05 at Garages 1 and 2, and the city requires permits to be bought quarterly. That $10.70 monthly gap means Garage 4, the planned home for displaced Garage 1 permits, is in the cheaper tier.
Two Programs With End Dates Tied to Other Decisions
The resident discount's end date depends on the construction schedule. At the July 7 meeting, commissioners voted 5-0 to end the pilot the month before the city is ready to break ground on the Mobility Hub. That replaced a proposal to run it through January 2027. Mayor Vince Lago said that, if construction started in October, the remaining window came to about three months: July, August and September. According to the Gazette, about 2,130 residents were enrolled after roughly 14 months. The discount had waived about $25,000 in parking revenue against $16 million in total parking revenue, an impact of about 0.16 percent. The city's Resident Parking Rate Pilot page is the place to confirm whether the discount is still running on the day you park.
The free trolley skips the parking question altogether, and one route has its own deadline. The Coral Gables Trolley runs free Monday through Saturday, 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. The Ponce de Leon route runs from the Douglas Metrorail Station to Flagler Street, and the Grand Avenue route runs through the historic MacFarlane Homestead District. It doesn't run on Sundays, July Fourth, Thanksgiving or Christmas. The Southern Loop, which extends service from the Douglas Road Metrorail Station to Red Road via Ponce de Leon Boulevard, launched Nov. 3, 2025 as a one-year pilot. The city has said ridership and feedback will decide whether it continues. The pilot year ends Nov. 3, just as Garage 1's closure is approaching. The ETA Transit app shows trolleys in real time, which takes the guesswork out of leaving the car at home for a Saturday on Miracle Mile.
What Goes Up in Garage 1's Place
The commission advanced the "Carved by Nature" design in October 2025. It calls for patterned, landscaped architecture, space for displaying art, and pedestrian paseos connecting to Miracle Mile. The plan also includes a rooftop community area meant for concerts, yoga, movie nights and restaurant seating. If the 18-month estimate holds from a late-2026 start, that rooftop would open sometime in 2028. Until then, the cheapest parking downtown is in Garage 4, Garage 2, Garage 6 and the Minorca Garage, at $2.50 an hour.
Parking costs are one of the everyday details we follow for our clients who own homes and condos near downtown Coral Gables. If you're weighing what 18 months of construction around Andalusia Avenue could mean for your property, The Bespoke Group can walk you through it. Start with a home valuation.