FL county opens paid truck parking lot in wake of new parking ban

Truckers in a Florida neighborhood now have little choice but to use newly constructed paid truck parking lot after the county banned them from parking on their own properties after two decades. 

The Acreage and Loxahatchee truck parking drama in Palm Beach County has been ongoing since late summer of last year. After months of back and forth, truck drivers living in those neighborhoods are officially banned from parking their trucks on their own property, which some of them had been doing for “over 20 years.”

Now, truck drivers in the area are left with very few truck parking options – Enter the construction of a new Discount Truck Parking lot. The company started clearing its 6 acre property in preparation for construction just this month. The facility will charge truckers to park in its approximately 200 spaces at 7777 Southern Boulevard, which will eventually feature 24/7 security and air-conditioned buildings with showers and offices. 

“We expect this lot to quickly fill up,” said Ariel Golan, a representative of Discount Truck Parking, to The Palm Beach Post. “There is an incredible need for truck parking in Palm Beach County.”

Now that truck parking has been banned in multiple neighborhoods, the new paid truck parking lot will essentially be the only legal truck parking in the county aside from the existing Florida Turnpike’s West Palm Beach service plaza, where truckers are said to wait up to an hour for a parking spot to open up. Drivers in those neighborhoods currently have until July 1st to find new places to park, and Golan says the new truck lot could be open as soon as June. 

Golan says that truckers from The Acreage and Loxahatchee are welcome at the new paid truck parking lot, and that there may be long-term parking discounts, but potential prices were not mentioned. The Orlando Discount Truck Parking lot charges $25 a day, but the company says that demand in Palm Beach county will determine the pricing. Golan says that the company is also planning another truck parking lot on Okeechobee Boulevard just east of the turnpike.

County commissioners are working to make zoning changes that would allow more truck parking facilities to be constructed in the area. 

“Whatever we can do to promote truck parking in non-residential areas is a positive,” said Vice Mayor Maria Marino. “We need to get these lots open as soon as possible.”