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29 March 2024

New JBR paid parking zone

Published
By Majorie van Leijen

A new paid parking zone has opened recently in Jumeirah Beach Residence (JBR) with the conversion of the public parking zone of Murjan Towers into paid parking slots.

“This is to inform you that Murjan Mezzanine Level 'Public Parking' will be converted to 'Visitor’s Paid Parking' effective from June 17, 2015,” Taziz Property Management Solutions announced on its website.

A fee of Dh10 will be charged per hour, while the first 15 minutes are free.

The parking zone consists of 300 slots and is located at the northern-most end of the Walk, forming an easy entry when coming from Dubai.

With the conversion of the public parking zone into a paid parking zone, the popular community lost one of the last places where free parking was readily available.

Murjan Towers was the ‘hidden spot’ for those not willing or able to spend a good part of their nightly budget on a parking facility.

“I always park in Murjan tower when I go to JBR. Not many people know about this place, so there is a good chance of finding a parking spot if you come there on weekday,” said Samer Al Soori, a Syrian resident in Dubai.

Apart from a residential community, JBR is a major tourist destination and weekend hangout for local residents.

With traffic volumes increasing on Thursday and Friday night, finding a parking spot is close to impossible if it was not for the paid parking zones established along the road.

Most accessible and available are the parking spaces in the underground parking lot in front of The Beach, a straight drive-through from Al Gharbi Street. This lot has 1,200 spaces and offers a slot for Dh20 per hour.

A little further north, a 550-slot parking area offers visitors a spot for Dh10 on Friday and Saturday and Dh5 on weekdays.

On-street parking is free of charge, but on the weekend, there is little chance you will find an empty spot. At various locations down the lane, parking is permitted at one or both sides of the street.

There are also stretches where parking is strictly forbidden, and fines do get handed out.

At the southern-most end of the Walk currently lies another parking option.

Marked with the words ‘Emaar customer parking’ the sandy area provides plenty of space for cars to park and nobody really understands whether they are permitted to do so.

There are definitely some spots where chances of finding an empty slot are more likely, claim frequent JBR-goers, who are unwilling to share the locations.

However, with the conversion of the Murjan public parking area into a paid zone, the most obvious free parking options have thinned out.