Hasta la vista, free parking lot in Clarendon. (Photo: TBD Staff)

Call them what you will: secret parking lots, rock star spots, parking freebies. Urban drivers everywhere covet them. They’re often few and far between, and if you have one up your sleeve, you don’t tell many people about it.

The Department of Human Services lot in Clarendon has just been such a haven in Arlington. Semi-hidden and unassuming, by day it served mainly as a parking lot for employees of Arlington County’s Department of Human Services, which was until recently headquartered in the building attached to the garage, 3033 Wilson Boulevard. From 6 p.m. to 2 a.m., though, about 400 spots were available to the public, gratis.

But all that’s about to change. The lot will go private Aug. 31, spelling an end to its miracle of free parking. Arlington moved DHS into offices at Washington Boulevard and Route 50, and the building is bringing in local parking giant Colonial to run the lot, according to the Clarendon Alliance. There’s no word yet on what the fees will be.

Arlington County — and businesses in the area — are quick to remind everyone that there is still plenty of garage parking around Clarendon for people visiting its ever-multiplying retail stores, restaurants and bars. In fact, the county is looking to combat what they see as a widespread misconception that there’s no parking in Clarendon. A recent staff report (PDF) from Arlington Economic Development notes:

“Although there is abundant parking in Arlington’s commercial areas, there is also a mistaken perception that it is limited, difficult to find and expensive. In congested areas, retailers struggle to accommodate customers when parking is limited and when on-street parking spaces are taken up by non-retail users. This is particularly problematic within mixed-use areas in which residents/guests leave their vehicles for extended periods of time after meter hours.”

There are currently 2,400 parking spots in five private garages around Clarendon, Arlington County parking manager Sara Stott says. The county has just placed 27 blue parking signs around the neighborhood to help people locate the entrances to these garages.

The problem is, lots of people don’t want to pay for parking, no matter how cheap it is. (One of the paid lots attached to the Market Common shopping center has a $2 flat rate after 6 p.m.; another nearby lot is a $3 flat rate during the same time.) Others are driving into the area from farther reaching suburbs, magical lands like, say, Reston Town Center, where everything has a parking lot and all spots are free.

“I think that people like to park on the street, and they like free parking,” Stott says. “People are also afraid that the rates might be too high. There’s a problem of a lack on information. They just don’t know there’s cheap garage parking.”

“There’s plenty of parking, just not free parking,” says Clarendon Alliance Executive Director Susan Anderson.

Inevitably, the closing of the DHS lot is going to increase competition at night for those coveted metered street spots, which are free after 6 p.m.

It also will likely increase pressure on the parking situation in the adjacent neighborhood of Lyon Village, something that the Lyon Village Citizens Association is planning to watch closely, according to John Carten, its president.

“We’re sorry to see them leave,” Carten says of the county lot. “It’s going to have a big impact on the neighborhood.” Parking on most Lyon Village streets is zone restricted during weekdays, but not at night or on weekends. Certain blocks, like the stretch of North Fillmore Street just north of Wilson Boulevard, have gotten the county to implement a 24/7 zone-only parking rule to keep people patronizing Clarendon businesses from parking there.

Stott says the county will keep tabs on the issue, however, and pointed out that any block of any street can request to have their street further restricted to zone parking. The request must be accompanied by a petition bearing signatures of 60 percent of residents on the block, and then the county will survey the area. If 75 percent of the block is filled with cars, and 25 percent or more of them are from outside the zone, the county will grant more hours for the zone restriction.

That could mean more zone-restricted streets adjacent to the Clarendon-Wilson Boulevards corridor in the future, if parking spillover into the residential neighborhood increases in the coming months.

There wouldn’t be any argument against that from businesses on the strip, Anderson says. “We don’t want people parking in the neighborhood, or driving through the neighborhood,” she says. “We’re all working together to encourage people not to do that.” A group of Clarendon businesses are now getting together to see if they can negotiate a monthly discount at the new lot for their employees, many of whom used to park in the free county lot, she adds.

Those driving into Arlington for the night might have to suck up that $2 garage fee, though.

Map of parking lots in Clarendon