Travelers who have been frustrated by parking shortages at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport during busy periods over the last year could see some relief, as an off-airport parking lot is about to open up more than 1,000 additional spaces.
Peachy Airport Parking, which is north of the Atlanta airport’s domestic and international terminals off I-85, plans to complete construction by the end of this month of about 1,250 covered parking spaces, after adding 250 spaces in December in front of its indoor parking facility on Sylvan Road. That’s on top of an existing 3,000 spaces across Peachy’s indoor and outdoor parking locations at Hartsfield-Jackson.
The expansion comes as Hartsfield-Jackson prepares for a busy spring break travel period, with 7.6 million passengers expected to pass through the world’s busiest airport from March 14 to April 7. Friday March 29 will be one of the airport’s busiest days, with more than 335,000 travelers expected, including connecting passengers.
Some travelers trying to find parking during peak periods have been unable to find a space and have missed flights.
“We’ve owned this land for a while and we had planned on developing it all along, but certainly the airport (parking) shortage was part of the impetus to do it,” said Helen Mouat, Peachy’s general manager. Peachy has the most off-airport parking spaces at the Atlanta airport, she said.
The approval process to build the expansion has taken years, Mouat said.
“We started actually about four or five years ago with going thru the Corps of Engineers to get the permits and going through the city (of East Point) to get the permits, and it’s actually taken longer than we thought it would,” Mouat said.
Hartsfield-Jackson has added some airport-run parking locations in recent years, including the ATL West deck and the ATL Select lot opened in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the airport has also closed some park-ride lots to make way for airport construction.
And last year, the airport closed its massive South economy parking lot, removing about 3,000 parking spaces from use next to the domestic terminal. The closure was done to make space for construction of a new parking deck that will take three years to build.
The South economy parking closure followed construction work that temporarily closed large swaths of the North and South parking decks. It’s part of a series of parking construction projects that will cause disruptions through 2034.
Some off-airport parking lots have expanded in years past, including the 2016 opening of the FastPark & Relax lot near the international terminal on the east side of the airport off I-75, and an expansion of that lot in 2020, right before the pandemic caused air travel to plummet. WallyPark in College Park also expanded about five years ago.
But many off-airport lots still reach capacity during busy periods, turning away travelers who don’t have a reservation.
While Peachy is north of the airport in East Point, most of the off-airport parking lots are on Camp Creek Road in College Park, west of the domestic terminal. Among the operators on Camp Creek is The Parking Spot, which announced last month its acquisition of Park ‘N Fly, an operator that also has locations on Camp Creek.
The off-airport parking industry is evolving as growth in air travel drives high demand for parking near the airport.
But the City of College Park has, over the years, pushed to diversify businesses in the area beyond just off-airport parking lots. It has put more of an emphasis on driving development of hotels, restaurants and residential real estate.
A 2017 report on College Park’s “Livable Centers Initiative” noted there is a “vast amount of acreage dedicated to public and private surface parking,” and said: “Some of these less efficient lots occupy land that would allow for much-needed residential development. The proposed masterplan outlines several strategies to bring these surface lots to a higher and greater land use.”
