Diamond Parking is an American company that operates
parking lot
A parking lot (American English) or car park (British English), also known as a car lot, is a cleared area intended for parking vehicles. The term usually refers to an area dedicated only for parking, with a durable or semi-durable surface ...
s in nine U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. It is based in
Seattle, Washington, and was founded in 1922 by Louis Diamond. , the company operates 1,914 parking lots with over 148,000 stalls in 47 cities.
History
Louis Diamond, the son of immigrants from the
Russian Empire, founded a car service company in 1922 and charged a daily fee of 10 cents for parking near the
Medical Dental Building.
The business later expanded to manage 17 parking lots prior to a shutdown during
World War II. Louis transferred control of the company in 1946 to his brothers Josef "Joe" (1908–2007), an attorney, and Leon.
They introduced
self-service payment with coin boxes to make up for the lack of parking lot attendants at the time; the practice was later adopted by other parking companies.
To prevent non-paying customers from leaving, Diamond Parking employed several techniques, including chaining vehicles to a
drum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a she ...
and disconnecting car batteries. Joe Diamond retained control of the company, which had 1,000 parking lots in nine U.S. states by 2007, until passing its ownership and management to his son and grandson.
The business also owned other real estate in the Western U.S., particularly office buildings and entertainment venues such as the
Seattle Cinerama
The Seattle Cinerama Theatre is a landmark movie theater in Seattle, Washington, United States. Located in the city's Belltown neighborhood, it was one of only three movie theaters in the world capable of showing three-panel Cinerama films until ...
until its sale to
Paul Allen in 1998.
Diamond Parking was also awarded the contract to enforce street parking rules in
Bellevue, a major suburb of Seattle. The company also manages the
Sinking Ship
The Sinking Ship is a multi-story parking garage in Pioneer Square, Seattle bound by James Street to the north, Yesler Way to the south, and 2nd Avenue to the east, and just steps away from the Pioneer Building on the site of the former Occi ...
garage in Seattle's
Pioneer Square
Pioneer commonly refers to a settler who migrates to previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land.
In the United States pioneer commonly refers to an American pioneer, a person in American history who migrated west to join in settling and dev ...
, which opened in 1962 and is owned by the Kubota–Fujii family.
A
class action lawsuit was filed against Diamond Parking in 2002 for imposing $30 fines to customers who had failed to pay for their parking tickets; the fee was found to be illegal under Washington state law and a $1.8 million payout to 57,000 affected customers was ordered by a U.S. District Court judge. A software glitch with payment processor
Elavon in early 2013 caused some Seattle locations to overcharge for parking.
In October 2013, several people in British Columbia complained that Diamond Parking was issuing tickets to drivers who were not even parked in their lots.
References
External links
*
1922 establishments in Washington (state)
Transport companies established in 1922
Companies based in Seattle
Parking companies
{{Washington-stub