A Florida airport is solving its ‘biggest issue.’ What to know about parking

Sarasota Bradenton International Airport is getting a makeover.

At a recent Tourist Development Council meeting, airport officials presented preliminary designs to build a parking garage near the terminal’s main entrance. The garage, which is still years away from completion, will be built in two phases.

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“That way it has less impact on the existing parking,” Mark Stuckey, said the airport’s executive vice president and chief product officer. “Right now, our biggest issue is parking. Short-term and long-term can fill up at times, usually on the weekends. We have plenty of parking, it’s just that we spill over into other lots where we have to shuttle people.”

Preliminary plans propose half of the parking garage to be completed at a time, with the East parking garage with a rental car return area constructed first. The West garage with a rental car exit area, parking exit ticketing plaza and long-term parking expansion will come after that.

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While the parking garage designs are not finalized yet, Stuckey said it will be no more than five stories high with the first floor reserved for rental cars.

Airport officials anticipate design planning to begin in January. It will take about a year before a groundbreaking takes place, Stuckey said, but airport officials did not share a tentative date for the project to be completed.

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