Allston Way Parking Garage

Reasonably priced for the first 2 hours, but get out quickly after that.

If you are in need of parking your vehicle during the day, before 6:00pm, you will have to pay for parking. It is best to arrive after 6:00pm, that when parking meters are dark. You can park in the street until 9:00am, after that you will have to pay .05 cents per two minutes, to maximum of two hours of parking.
If you move your car into the parking garage before 9:00am, it is $ 11:00 for all day parking. However, you need to move your car out of the garage before midnight on Mondays — Thursdays, (2:00am on Fridays and Saturdays) or your car will be trapped behind steel gate.
If you fail to do so, the parking fee will instead be $ 17.00 for the first day and automatically be $ 17.00 for following morning. There is additional discount offered, if you arrived at garage after 4:00pm, the fee will be $ 5.00 until midnight (or 2:00am). Weekend daily maximum is $ 7.00 per day. The only reprieve is that street parking, free all day Sunday.

The garage has the worst customer service you can imagine. I get so angry with their unwillingness to be helpful in ways that they are totally capable. I’ve rented a monthly spot here for two years and they know me. The two times I couldn’t find my badge to get out they could have just swiped me through. Instead they ask that I pay 17 dollars (lost daily card rate). Even when I show my paid monthly bill to prove who I am they refuse to help. Then they threatened to tow me if I didn’t hurry up and just pay to get out. For your mental health, rent elsewhere.

I’m writing to let Allston Way Parking Garage know that the new lights are so bright that it keeps our new born baby awake at night. We live in the Berkeley Central apartments on Center Street and the lights are so bright that it feels like we live across AT&T Park.
I understand the need for more lights for security reasons but the lights are angled directly at our apartment. We live on the 6^th floor and we have these huge windows. It’s actually the only window that we have in the apartment. We don’t have any walls that completely reach the ceiling so the lights shine all the way through into our bedroom. Unfortunately, we only have these very sheer blinds and we can’t do any construction on the apartment since we are renting. I hope you can see how much your new lights impact our ability to sleep.
Can you please turn the lights down or at least turn off the lights that are angled north, towards Center Street? We would really appreciate it.
Also, you installed a new beeping noise a few months ago and it now prevents us from enjoying our patio. The beeping sound is really loud and constant. I get that everyone has street noise when they live in the city but a constant beeping every few minutes will drive you crazy — trust me. Now we have to keep our door closed and our A/​C bill has doubled because of it. :(
Thank you.

Other patrons have already said this, but it is worth saying again…
I «reserved» a parking space at this garage for the Berkeley Half Marathon. Full disclosure: reservations were made through GottaPark, a third party reservation service. I reserved a parking spot because anyone who runs races and is familiar with downtown Berkeley knows that parking is always a shit show. I got to shattuck with almost an hour to spare before the race started. I proceeded to wait in a long line of cars all clearly heading to their reserved spot in this garage. When I finally got within view of the garage, I see a closed parking lot and countless people going up and speaking with a parking lot attendant. He was clearly not letting anyone in. I got out to find out what was going on because the first wave of the race was starting. People were waving their registration papers, asking why they couldn’t park. The man responded rudely, claiming that the lot was full, and that the third party reservation services sold too many. He then told us all to go find parking elsewhere. Are you kidding? Seven thousand people are running… why the F do you think we «reserved» parking. Horrible customer service in response to a huge screw up on someone’s part. Judging from the other reviews here, sounds like this is just their MO.
Never. Again.

Worst experience ever with this place: paid for a GUARANTEED spot for the Berkeley Half Marathon. I get there and they’ve way oversold the place: huge line of cars who they’ve also taken money from but won’t let them park. The two people working there were beyond rude and unapologetic — basically said too bad, not our problem. I guarantee that I will never spend another dime on this shady place.

These guys are crooks!!! Do not park here if you have a choice. We pre-​paid…$ 11.50 to park here during the Berkeley Marathon. We were told we were reserving a space. We arrived and they were closed up with a sign that said FULL. They wouldn’t give us our money back. They said all the spaces were full and shoo-​ed us away. I will never do business here again! They should be ashamed! The Berkeley race folks need to NOT recommend them either!

I am literally disgusted by this parking lot. Here is the email I sent to their office today as it explains why:
«Hi there,
I am writing to you today because I am a monthly parker in your garage and I can not even begin to tell you how disgusting and dirty the staircases are in your garage, especially the one that leads out to Allston Way right by the YMCA.
Right now there has been a bag of trash which looks like it has feces in it that has been sitting on the stairs since last week. There is also vomit on the steps.
Last month there were broken eggs, the same trash and other waste materials in the staircases for over 2 weeks. The egg never got cleaned up, it is still there and completely stuck to the stairs now. And don’t even get me started about how every corner of every level is stained with urine.
This is completely unsanitary and totally repulsive. Every end of the garage should be cleaned for trash every day. We all pay extremely high fees to park in your garage ($ 10 more per month than the LAZ lot across the street, which practically sparkles in cleanliness compared to yours), the decent and sanitary thing to do is clean up the garage. It seriously needs a power wash or something. I haven’t been wearing open toed shoes to work because I am scared of what I might step on in your garage. That’s just ridiculous that I have to plan my wardrobe around the risk of stepping in something gross in your garage.
Please do something about cleaning up the garage on a regular basis or I will be reporting you to the city.»
And oh, as others have mentioned, people do drive like maniacs around all the corners on each level so beware! The lanes are tight.

In the past 2 weeks, the elevators twice worked only one way (up in one case, down in another). There were no signs to this effect, BTW, just unfortunate experience. Yesterday, the newly-​installed automated pay machine took my validated card then gave me no credit for the validation! When I pushed the button for customer service, I got a message to try again later, which is exactly what happens when you dial their prominently-​posted phone number; they NEVER ANSWER THE PHONE OR RETURN CALLS. Truly abominable customer service!

This place is run by people who are either intentionally scamming customers, or incompetent.
My father stayed at the Hotel Shattuck Plaza recently, whose website specifically mentions this carpark as their designated parking place. The first time he exited was about an hour after they opened, and we had to wait almost 10 minutes for an older woman to appear from somewhere so he could pay. Then she didn’t have change for his bills, so we had to wait for her to go and get that, grumbling the whole time.
The second time, though, is the main reason why I’m writing this review. My Dad entered the carpark at 15:02 on the 23^rd, and left at 10:06 on the 25^th. The woman (the same slow one as before) charged him $ 55 for that stay. We kept trying to question it, but she has a thick accent and was difficult to understand. She kept mentioning a $ 20 overnight fee, which none of us could find on any of their signs (in fact, we couldn’t find any mention of an overnight fee at all). She tried to say, at one point, that it should be $ 77 (!!) but that the computer had made a mistake and come up to $ 55. We were on a tight time schedule, so Dad paid it, but kept the receipt. He later queried it with the Hotel Shattuck Plaza, who indicated that this was not the first time a customer had had an issue with the parking lot, and that although they can’t officially say so, they recommend you park in the Kittredge St parking lot instead. The hotel did offer him a free breakfast as compensation for the parking issues.
Dad also tried to contact the manager of the parking lot, but he was away on the weekend and although he was supposed to return at 09:00 on Monday, 29^th April, he was not there at 09:30 and no one could say when he would be there. Dad had a flight to catch, so could not pursue it further.
In addition to the ridiculous, made-​up fees, they were pressure-​washing the garage in staggered lots, which they indicated via signs. However, they did not take any of these signs down, so when we went to park after it had been completed, there were still «no parking» signs all over the 3^rd floor, despite that floor having been washed the day previous. So not only are they incompetent, rude and potentially ripping people off, they’re also lazy.
There is no way in hell I would ever park a vehicle in this lot, and I strongly recommend no one else does, either.

COME ON PEOPLE, SLOW DOWN IN THE GARAGE!
Parked in here before heading to Five Restaurant at the Shattuck Hotel, not far away. We pushed the button for our ticket at 6:25 p.m. and finally found a spot up on the third floor. Cars zoomed by us on their way out. We walked to the stairs and down to ground level. It was only a short distance to Five.
We left our part at 8 pm and headed back to the garage, only to find that the door we’d exited from was exit ONLY! There was no handle to get us back in to the stairwell. Fortunately, a gentleman was coming out and the door opened at the perfect time. We were out of the garage at 8:04 for a $ 5.00 total.
Pretty convenient and affordable parking. Go check out FIVE and park here if you’re not lucky enough to find something on the street.

If by chance you are coming and going from this lot around 10pm on a weekend night, be prepared to wait a long long time before making your escape to do whatever it is you are doing.
I like how they are open till midnight though, we returned at like 11:58! Sweet. Location was good for our stay at the Hotel Shattuck across the street. So, this garage also has a good location for visiting shops and restaurants along Shattuck. Attendant came over to help us when the machine was out of tickets, she was helpful but also on her phone the whole time. I guess that is the new normal though?

RUDE does not even begin to describe how freaking RUDE the people are who work at this place.

Waited in a car line for 30 minutes today to get out of this Hades of a parking lot. 1 attendant for a full parking lot letting out, no apologies, no sympathy. Horrible way to spend a half hour, I would never park here again.

Here was a Facebook post from Gayle yesterday:
Stuck on fourth floor of Allston way parking garage I’m Berkeley. Cal game just let out and place is a virtual parking lot. They should take a lesson from #LesherArtsCenter and manage special event parking. Makes me wonder why I bothered to come to Berkeley in first place. Grrrrrr.,
The reason we were in Berkeley yesterday was for a most entertaining performance of Chinglish at Berkeley Rep. I’ll give this garage higher marks because Berkeley Rep validates the parking down to $ 3 and on non-​game days, it’s pretty easy to get in and out of this garage. In hindsight, we should have taken BART and made our separate Albany side trip on a different day.

Not friendly for one.
Next, there is no way to pay upon entering the garage on foot with a «grace period» of time to leave the garage. This means you have to pay for the time you spend in line at the end waiting to get out. I started another hour while waiting in line. When I brought this to the attendant’s attention and asked if he could waive the charge for the time I was in line he just argued with me. Just recently I left EXACTLY two hours from the time I came in according to their own clock and the attendant tried to charge me for another hour.
My take is that the owner must run it on the cheap with only one attendant, no grace periods etc and then lets the attendants take the brunt of the abuse. This makes for very unhappy surly attendants.
I really wish there was affordable three hour parking someplace else downtown.

I’m very proud of the fact that I’ve worked in Downtown Berkeley since the middle of November and have had to drive to work only once. That’s right. Whereas when I worked part time at Cal I often ended up waking up too late to take BART and so drove and either parked on the street somewhere south of campus or in that hidden gem the MLK Student Union garage, which is relatively cheap and has really nice attendants, I’m now basically responsible and all growed up. (Yes, that’s intentional. Irony, people.)
So when I did wake up too late to take BART last week, I knew that I could park here. And I knew that it would be expensive ($ 14 for the entire day). What I didn’t know is that it has a really slow elevator. Or that even at 5:45 a bunch of people are lined up, waiting to pay for parking. It took me a grand total of seventeen minutes from the time I entered the garage after work to the time I paid. Seventeen minutes! I enjoy taking BART, and while its seats are dirty and it’s overpriced, I love the fact that I’m not driving and creating more traffic and pollution. But driving should have some advantages, and when I pay $ 14 to park somewhere, I’d like to be able to leave whenever I want. That’s kind of the point of driving. In those seventeen minutes, I probably missed two southbound BART trains.
Here’s a suggestion: Post up an attendant on the north side of the garage as well. That way, people can leave either way, and they won’t be forced to write Unilocal reviews criticizing you for basically imprisoning your customers.

Parked here on an uneventful January Saturday afternoon and tried to leave at 4:30.
IT TOOK US FORTY MINUTES TO LEAVE. On a Saturday afternoon. In fact, after 25 minutes to get from the 5^th to 4^th floor, we parked again and went to get something to eat. Thinking that the random incident that had backed up the traffic would be resolved.
But it took us 15 more minutes to get from the 4^th floor out.
When we asked the attendant about the wait, she flatly shrugged ‘busy’.
Looking at reviews, this organization is a fan of the one parking attendant at all times. Yay. I never thought I’d review a parking garage but I’m doing this as an altruistic measure so that no one has to spend 40 minutes smelling exhaust and experiencing high blood pressure.

To bad Unilocal doesn’t allow you to give negative stars!
Long story short. it was New Years Eve 2010, I stayed at the Hotel Shattuck Plaza right across the street, so I decided to park in the garage over night to save some money.
NO WHERE did they post any signs that the garage was going to be completely closed New Years day! and the person working there the night before who was at the little booth failed to tell us that as well. Just a heads up from them out have been nice because then we would have paid the extra money for hotel valet.
So I had to rush on BART to make it to work on time, have to go back tomorrow to pick my car up, and if I get fined, please believe I’m not going down with out a fight!
Just be careful when you park here.

This garage is centrally located in downtown, across from the Shattuck Hotel. The only inconvenience for me is that you enter from one street and exit from another. So as I“m driving up Allston, there are signs that show parking and arrows that point to the garage, but when you get there, you realize that you have to drive around the block to enter.
So if you make the same mistake I did, make 3 right turns to Center Street, yes it’s a little longer, but if you’ve ever tried to make a left onto Shattuck and another left on Center, you’ll agree with me.
Although it’s the Allston Way Garage, take Center Street to find the only entrance in. 1 star off making folks drive around to find the entrance, 1 star off for the «pissy» smell in the stairwell. I knwo we’re green and all, but use some reclaimed water to hose down the stairwell’s. I had flashbacks of visiting the «co-op’s on the Lower East Side in NYC.
The $ 5 deal after 6pm is really cool. But just like Cinderalla, this ball is over at MIDNIGHT. If you don’t wanna end up walking home, get your car before the clock strikes TWELVE.