It also installed Chai's Island Bistro in another vacant space at the marketplace's entrance. This year the center plans to add at least one major tenant and possibly modify another. Another major change at the marketplace has been parking. Hedrick said the number of vehicles parked grew 17 percent in 1999 over 1998, with valet service increasing 100 percent. He said early kinks in the system are gone and valet service has continued to grow 20 percent to 30 percent in the last few months.
Parking still costs money for both self- and valet parking.
But some merchants are covering the charge for customers that make a purchase and others are rewarding their best customers by paying for parking regardless of a purchase. Cardenas of Red Dirt Shirts said parking is still a stumbling block to drawing more shoppers, but said the valet service is helping. Late last year Aloha Tower also began quick-serve valet service for the downtown lunch crowd in which diners can call the valet desk before leaving a restaurant and punch in their ticket number to have their car waiting out front. He said the customer mix at Aloha Tower is about 65 percent visitors and 35 percent residents. Still, Krause of Calico General Store said she would like to see greater efforts to attract even more residents.