DOHA: Visitors to City Centre Doha will soon feel the pinch as they will be charged for parking their cars at the mall with ticket machines already installed in the facility.
The leading shopping mall has not yet announced the date when they will start charging customers for using their parking facility but a source said it would likely be by next month.
The mall management was not available for comment yesterday but had told this paper earlier that their decision to introduce paid parking was prompted by employees of nearby companies who use up a big chunk of parking space.
City Centre mall is surrounded by high towers, many of which do not provide ample parking space for their employees and visitors.
The move was seen a solution to ease the congestion in the parking space, a major problem encountered by many of the visitors to the mall especially during weekends.
Two years ago in December, the management made it public they would start the paid parking scheme by February the following year but for unknown reason it was deferred.
The mall has around 1,600 parking slots, 300 of which are occupied by mall staff. An additional parking space that could accommodate up to 400 vehicles was planned to be set up to alleviate the problem.
Lack of parking space is seen to be a main problem as a huge influx of people is expected this summer when people are left almost without any choice but spend their leisure time inside the mall as staying out is virtually impossible with temperatures crossing 50 degrees Celsius.
© The Peninsula 2011
