Imperial Parking-Embarcadero Center Garage

SCAM. Charges max rate $ 34.00. Doesn’t honor restaurant validation despite signage. Rude attendant. Tight spaces. Ought to be investigated

it was my second time in a week traveling to the Jack London Square area. I parked in the Impark Garage at 255 2^nd Street because the week before my friends rear window was smashed when he parked on the street. Upon returning from my event around 11 pm, the drama unfolded. I entered my ticket into the machine and then put my credit card UNFORTUNATELY into the cash slot. This all happened in under 5 seconds. Two hours later, and about 10 phone calls, hang ups (on their end), and «its not my job» I was able to get a security guard to «walk ten blocks» to let me out of the garage. I never did get anyone to open the machine to help me retrieve my credit card. Mind you this was Saturday night and I was supposed to wait until the upcoming Monday to maybe get help. If you have a garage, have people who can help your patrons. That machine was going to be out of commission until Monday I suppose. I couldn’t even put money in the pay slot. I did my «bestest» to try to get my card to spit out but no luck. I don’t appreciate having to now change all 15 of my auto– pay account s to a new card, while waiting on the ‘airline miles” card, and then changing all 15 of my auto pay accounts again. Dag nabbit. By the way the number on the machine apparently is for «medical emergencies only.» That person hung up on me at least 5 times just mid conversation saying «this is not my job.» I then found another button to push for a security guard who said he had to walk ten blocks to come and didn’t really want to. I told him my friend with a car would come pick him up and he declined. Finally someone appeared. I really would like Oakland to get its act together but I just CANNOT be bothered anymore. Jack London Square and Impark are really not concerned abut you or anyone else. I will take my money elsewhere. And FYI, will take über and avoid any IMPARK garage in SF as well. Poor service isn’t worth my time.

Parked at 1pm for a lunch meeting. Departed the garage at 2:33pm. Total cost: $ 24!
Let’s do the math here. An hour-​and-​a-​half of temporary car storage = $ 8/​30minutes. That’s freakin’ insane! My parking fee was higher than my lunch bill!
Parking at the Embarcadero Center Garage = getting screwed in your car with your pants on.
Never again.

I work in this building and park here every day.
The building is clean, I have never seen vandalism of theft– thank god. And in general I have no complaints… it is a parking garage.
My huge beef if the management staff. To be clear I am NOT including Alfred in this comment, he is wonderful and sweet, and always super helpful.
There is a younger guy who manages the office now and he is horrible. He was not rude to me but extremely rude to his staff and as I watched him belittle, undermine, and make fun of his staff I just wanted to cry.

I am a monthly parker at Embarcadero Two as the law firm I work with is in this building and I (along with many of my colleagues) am so disappointed that they have changed Management at Embarcadero Parking. Imperial Parking Management (aka «IMPARK») is the WORST! Having to deal with Canadian telemarketers now to do anything (pay for my monthly parking, set up a login, etc.) is such a hassle. Plus the IMPARK telephone sales reps are just useless, they can’t nor do they take the time to help you with anything! For for $ 425 /​month, you expect better service from the new management team!!!
The only good thing is that Alfred Chin (who is the parking angel!) is back from his leave — god bless Alfred, he is the ONLY good thing about the management here at the Embarcaderos.

I have been attending the building lighting ceremony and been shopping at the Embarcadero Center for the past 10+ years due to the convenience of 4 hours of free holiday parking during the weekends that they readily advertise for the holiday season.
A few weeks back, we encountered an issue where we were told that certain validations does not qualify for the free parking. We naturally had gotten the validation from the first store we made a purchase from which was See’s at Embarcadero 3 which happened to be a stamped validation. We have in the past years received both the machine stamped validation and the sticker validations from them which we never had any problems getting free parking as long as it was under 4 hours.
In the brochure for the building lighting it states that as long as you spend at least $ 5 from any restaurant and store, you will get free 4 hours of parking but doesn’t specify what stores have machine stamped and which stores have stickers. We spent over $ 20 at See’s and stayed for under 2 hours and had to pay.
Short of asking each store when we enter if they offer the free 4 hour holiday parking sticker vs. the regular validated parking rate, how are customers to know which stores qualify and which stores do not. Again, in the past, we have had both types of validations and never had problems with it as long as it was during the holiday season weekends. I have contacted them right after it happened but it’s been over 2 weeks with no response so this experience left a bad taste in my mouth meaning no more shopping or parking at Embarcadero again for me.
So warning holiday shoppers, you better make sure you ask for the sticker validation before you shop there or better yet, just go to the mall.

Extremely rude staff. After we discussed the charge and paid him $ 32 he demanded in a out of control gesture, the person in the booth even yelled ‘stupid’ to us while we were leaving.

Convenient location but extremely rude staff. Security nazi harrassed us while we buckled in a child and checked our map. Strange way to treat customers if you expect repeat business.

This is more of a warning than a review.
Because of a less than poor experience with my last valet parking experience, I decided to park my car in a lot rather than hand my keys to a kid who is a fan of joyriding in vehicles that don’t belong to them.
7:00 dinner reservations at a local spot where a three hour dining experience would be considered «rushing it».
Long story short, by the time we got back to the lot it was closed. In fact the lot was closed at 10:00! Really?
Returned this morning and picked up my car. At least it was scratch free.
Thank you for that.

RIP OFF!!! The parking attendant won’t honor the parking validation from the Gap store upstairs because it was late on its contract fees. He told me the Gap cashier lied to me when she said my Gap receipt counts as parking validation.
I don’t care who is right or who is wrong. It says on the parking ticket the ticket can be validated for 4 hours if spending of $ 10 or more.
Take my advice and stay away from this garage. Something is wrong. They don’t care about its costumers.

I’m not sure why people diss this parking garage. What do you expect out of a parking garage? It’s a freakin’ garage to park your car and get on with your business!
This garage is rated at least 2 or more for the following reasons:
1. It’s clean. I’ve never seen a homeless guy here or smelled urine or feces in the corners.
2. The weekend deals are great. You park there, go to one of the shops and spend about 10 bucks (some decent restaurants there) and your first 2 hours are free and hour 3 and 4 are 2 bucks. Plenty of time to go to the Ferry Building and do your thing.
3. As some person mentioned already, you can watch a movie there and get free parking. For the poster who whined about having to pay premium there because they forgot to validate, keep that to yourself. We’re rating the place, not your ability (or inability) to remember.
4. The garage is relatively safe. Obviously you can’t expect Fort Knox, so I don’t know what all the bitching is about. As a woman, I’ve never felt 100% safe in any parking garage. Just be vigilant and you should be okay.
5. Plenty of spaces — some parking garages for touristy like places fill up fast and you’re stuck driving around and around and around for 45 minutes (which is being charged on your parking ticket) until you find a spot. This spot has plenty of spaces and I usually find a spot within 10 minutes or less. Yes the spaces are small and yes there are a lot of pillars, but if you can’t park a car in these spaces, either learn to drive or don’t drive at all. I’m an Asian woman for goodness sake and even I can do it.
Why the garage is bad:
1. Yes, it’s dank. Yes, it’s dark in some places. It’s a freakin’ parking garage, did we forget that?
2. Expensive without the normal weekend deals or validation. If you HAVE to be in the financial district and HAVE to drive, then yes, it’s expensive. Figure out why you HAVE to drive, it’s SF with great public transportation for goodness sake. You can always park a mile away and get better deals and the exercise if you want to.

Zomg. parking and driving here is so scary! parking spaces are super tight. sharp turns. columns blocking the whole place. I would avoid this parking structure at all causes.

Very very very convenient but expensive. Luckily, my boss pays for my monthly parking pass.

Steer clear of this place.
I forgot how expensive parking is here. It was the most expensive place to park in the city in the 80’s and it still is.
Unfortunately in my rush to find parking before the movie started I forgot that fact.
And after the movie we had coffee and spent some money in one of the Embarcadero stores. We didn’t even think to get our parking validated at any of these places.
I think the attendant probably gets lots of guff when he tells people the charge. In our case it was $ 32. He asked us right away if we wanted to re-​park and run back to the theater to get our parking validated.
Ummm…no…it would be too hard to follow another set of crumbs to find our car again. But the fellow was really nice and told us to be sure and ask for validation next time. We could have brought the bill down to $ 26.
Except I don’t think we’ll be going back to the Embarcadero to shop or go to the movies… at least until I forget again about how expensive the parking is.

Expensive! We paid $ 32 because we didn’t know any better. The traffic once we hit embarcadero was horrible so wewanted to just park. The only good part about it is the convenience, right in front of the ««mall», ferry, and farmers market. Later on, we noticed that if we walked 2 more blocks, the parking fees were only 10 to 15 $! Boy was that frustrating. You live, you learn… and you probably will forget the next time you hit up SF again.

Here is the deal.
You have to park here if you are going to the center. However some of the places validate a few hours.
Beware:
It’s a bitch to get out of this place. Certain elevators only take you to certain floors. Nothing is well marked. I feel like you need a GPS unit to find your way out.
It is also expensive. If was $ 15 for less than two hours of parking.

I believe this is the underground garage at the Embarcadero shopping center. This place is horrible. It’s a maze inside (and like someone else said — this garage did remind me of the episode of Seinfeld in which they all got lost looking for their car). I was charged $ 3 per 15 minute increment. I paid a total of $ 18 (a large chunk of time was spent looking for my car).
As I was trying to exit the garage some lady was taking forever to leave at the pay station. Finally I was next and the parking attendant swiped my card and asked for $ 15. When I gave him the money he said … no wait … now it’s $ 18. Apparently I went a minute over by the time I paid him.
«Well,» I told him, «that lady in front of me was taking forever to leave, why should I pay for that?»
But of course he didn’t give a damn.

Ahhh, the infamous Embarcadero Parking Garage! I hate parking here! I’m always stuck parking here when I don’t make it for the Early Bird Special at the Five Star Parking Garage that’s a block away. Here are my reasons why I dread parking here.
The parking spaces are extremely small! I think my motorcycle would fit perfectly in one «compact» space. When I was parking my Jeep Grand Cherokee, it took up one full «compact» space and half of the other. I understand what the word, «compact» means, but geez, I don’t think even a Mini Cooper would fit.
The freaking garage is a maze! I felt like I was in that Seinfeld episode when they got lost in the parking garage at the mall. I took the elevator to the wrong floor and when I figured I had to go one more floor down, I discovered the elevator doesn’t stop at Level B! Therefore, I had to walk down the driveway
A full day parking fee is $ 32.00! Enough said.

Lots of cement columns and narrow parking spaces.
I can only imagine what this place was like when it first opened in the ‘70s when people were driving gigantic GM cars with crappy turning radii. Must’ve been like bumper cars at an amusement park.
But you can park free for four hours when you go to the movies!

the management here is grumpy. Am I the only one who thinks this garage is a maze? I can never find the elevators or ramp to exit.
It’s close to work so I guess I should be grateful.