Century Square — Attraction in College Station

I've lived in College Station for nearly a decade. When I first moved here, I said to myself, "Why is all of this land directly across the street from nearly 60,000 students who are wanting to spend their money on retail and restaurants home to a defunct hotel and old housing? Why not make this land into a hub for great restaurants, hotels, and stores for students and locals to finally have nice things? Why can't we have nice things!?!"

Well, the hotel was imploded, the apartments razed, and the land was turned into Century Square's new development. I'm impressed with everything that's been developed on that land, and I think they got so much right.

But this is a town that likes to get new shoes...and then shoot itself in the foot.

Don't get me wrong: Aggieland is one of the greatest places in the country in my opinion. I swear by it; and I'm made fun of for my love of it here.

But I DO understand why they poke fun at us. It's because of things like this--like finally creating a great place for us to get good food, nice hotels for friends and family to stay, etc., only to mess up the entire multi-million dollar enterprise with...paid parking?

It's absolutely outrageous to be literally punished for wanting to come spend money in Century Square.

I understand that there needs to be a way to police people who might park their cars there to head to class, or those parking there to go to a game. But placing the onus directly on customers is the most backwards thinking possible. Our first thought about spending money at any of those establishments is, "Hmmm...but I'll need to pay for parking. Maybe I'll just make it easy and go someplace else."

I am only one person, and since Century Square opened its first wave of retail and dining, I've cut the amount of times I've dined, or my family has shopped, by nearly 75 percent since the parking meters were installed. Think about it: I would have spent hundreds of dollars in Century Square....

If you want to police parking, then do it. There are so many alternatives that don't push customers away, alternatives that can keep desperate students in need of a spot or gameday fans from parking there. But this system is absolutely all wrongheaded and needs to go away--and fast!

You're already cutting into profits for businesses that are leasing there. The last time I was there, while paying for the "privilege" of parking there and spending money at a restaurant, two other people were waiting in line, sweating in the heat, and complaining about paid parking.

Think about this: You are putting a negative middleman between the consumer and the act of consumption, and that little thought in the mind, that little negative thought, is literally altering peoples choices as to whether to spend money there or not.

Please, get it right. We are on the verge of having great things here. But this...

Have come to love Hop Doddy & now Blaze Pizza ...was looking forward to trying the other new restaurants nearby as well BUT, today discovered we must PAY to PARK. Only indication was the “Meter Maid” placing tickets on cars. The process is very poorly designed. Once you park, you walk to the pay station and must know in advance how long you will stay. $1 for 1 hour. If you will stay longer than an hour, it’s $5. How are we supposed to know exactly how long it will take us to eat? Then the machine asks for your license plate number so if you don’t have it memorized you walk back to your car & either take a picture of it, write it down, or try & remember it. Then you walk back to the machine. Once you enter lic# into the machine you must WALK BACK TO YOUR CAR AGAIN TO PUT THE DAMN RECEIPT IN THE WINDSHIELD! And only then, if you haven’t had a heat stroke from pounding the pavement, you may continue on to your destination. We might have stayed to enjoy a 2nd beer with our lunch but were in a hurry to get to our cars before “Meter Maid.” Sorry but all the other restaurants in this town provide free & easy parking so won’t be doing this again. So long...

[update] That programming money should be coming from the rent the business pay as is usually done. Unless a crowded downtown area with very limited parking, these types of shopping centers simply don't do paid parking like this, not even in the large cities. I have no problem paying for parking in cities or areas where it's called for, this is just not needed. The response to the reviewers concerned about paid parking doesn't cut it. Plenty of mixed-use shopping areas make it work just fine without paid parking. There are much better ways to plan for parking than what has been done here. Those businesses that you claim are happy about it will not be so when they start seeing the drop in business once the paid parking is enforced. If you're concerned about longer term parking then put in time limit areas and add paid longer term. Nobody else in town does this, why do you feel it's so imperative that you do? I assure you it's not in fact a good thing for customers or businesses. How about instead of simply defending the parking over and over you actually take 100% negative comments into consideration and realize it just may...