WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH — A popular coastal town is once again looking to restructure rates in its parking program, which could come with an increase for hourly parkers on the weekend, but a decrease for weekday visitors.
Wrightsville Beach held its budget meeting between town staff and the board of aldermen on Thursday, Jan. 20. Paid parking, which runs from March to October, was among many topics discussed. Town staff are crunching the numbers for variable parking rates — first suggested by Pivot Parking to the town in December, improved upon by staff, and chosen by the board as a solution to entice more visitors to Wrightsville Beach during the weekdays. However, the change also brings with it higher weekend parking rates.
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It currently costs $5 an hour to park in Wrightsville Beach no matter the day. The changes discussed at the meeting would make hourly parking from Monday through Thursday $4 but would raise the rates Friday through Sunday to $7 an hour. The change would also get rid of premium parking — high-demand spots usually closer to beach access points.
Premium spots cost $6 an hour from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.; regular parking ends at 7 p.m. Premium parking went into effect in 2024 but the aldermen considered it confusing and overly complex.
“Either end them at eight or end them all at seven [o’clock],” Alderman Todd Schoen said at the meeting.
There are approximately 1,882 spaces available overall and enforceable in Wrightsville Beach — around 500 are currently considered premium.
PCD asked the town how much it made from premium parking in 2025 but did not receive a response by press.
Schoen asked if the changes would leave a disparity in revenue. The 2025 parking program brought the town nearly $8 million, the same as it made in 2024.
“I think the revenue that you would lose on the weekday, you would pick back up on the weekends and on holidays,” Town Manager Haynes Brigman responded.
The revenue difference based on the suggested changes has not yet been calculated, but the town hopes to see an increase.
Brigman and the board also discussed all day parking rates, which currently are $30 for non-premium and $35 for premium parking; the changes would eliminate the premium parking costs and instead charge $25 for weekday hours and $30 for weekend day passes. The daily pass rate previously increased in 2025, as reported by Port City Daily.
The financial feasibility and suggestions are being considered by staff before the board takes action.
At the workshop last week, town staff and the board noted that currently, the hourly rate of Wrightsville Beach was less than Carolina Beach, which also uses Pivot Parking. Carolina Beach’s parking rate is $6 an hour compared to Wrightsville Beach’s $5; Carolina Beach has not decided to increase its rates for the season.
However, Brigman said Wrightsville Beach saw more people parking, at 665,000 transactions in 2025, compared to Carolina Beach’s 240,000.
Brigman also recommended removing 14 parking total spaces across the island — 11 east of N. Lumina Avenue heading north to Mallard Street and three from Waynick Boulevard. In 2025, he added that six to seven parking spaces were removed due to safety concerns for pedestrians.
However, he expected the recommended removals this season would result in some pushback.
“Removing spaces on Waynick has come with some criticism from residents because they utilize those spaces for their docks,” Brigman said, referring to people who park next to the entrances to access the docks, “and for visitors and things like that in the off seasons and shoulder seasons. We’ll just have to be mindful of that, but hopefully being that it’s just three spaces [on Waynick, complaints] will be limited.”
The spaces, he added, were also high-revenue generating, but the need for public safety improvements for pedestrians at the crosswalk outweighed the cost of removal.
The 11 spaces to be sheared from N. Lumina Avenue do not produce as much revenue as the three on Waynick, but will provide better access for emergency response vehicles.
Brigman also informed the aldermen Pivot Parking was in the process of creating a map of the parking areas in Wrightsville Beach to detail how busy they will be on the island at any given time. The mapping would be based on transaction data stored by the site and analyzed alongside an AI algorithm; thus, it may not be exact or entirely accurate always, but it will reflect the general capacity of a given lot.
The new mapping will break down parking volume into red (high volume), yellow (medium volume), and green (low volume) and is said to be ready around May 2026, after the parking season officially begins in March. The platform can be accessed through the QR codes on parking signs and through the app’s platform for people to see both at the lot and at home whether parking is available.
The town hopes the map will help with traffic congestion on the island, and inform visitors about ideal days or times to visit. Part of the appeal for the changes — not just the new mapping — is increasing visitors from neighboring places like Wilmington during the weekdays, to balance out, or lessen the load of, the sheer amount of visitors on the weekends.
While no decisions were made during the budget meeting, staff and the board agreed to revisit the program in February and potentially move forward with a vote from the aldermen. That would still give staff time to prepare proper signage for the parking season.
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