For the first time since it was built 15 years ago, the downtown Bend parking garage on Lava Road will no longer allow free parking.

The Centennial Parking Garage had offered free three-hour parking, but starting next week, visitors will be charged $1 per hour to park.

City staff will install a gate at the entrance Monday that will limit access to only paying parking customers.

Tobias Marx, Bend’s parking services division manager, said the new restrictions are in response to some nearby residents and visitors that said the free access to the parking garage led to unsafe behaviors from local skateboarders and people racing their cars through the garage.

“We needed to make a decision to help residents and visitors bring some safety back to that garage,” Marx said.

In addition, Marx said he does not expect the change to affect many users because the vast majority of the 547 parking spaces are used by permit holders who pay $40 per month to park in the garage.

“The Centennial Garage is mainly used by permit holders, so we felt comfortable about removing the three hours of free parking,” Marx said.

Having free access to the parking garage regularly drew unsafe behaviors, Marx said. Those behaviors escalated in recent years, with large gatherings of cars revving their engines and racing, while groups of skateboarders interfered with passing cars.

“It really doesn’t create a feeling of safety for people who want to park in a public space,” Marx said.

Bend resident Tom Hamilton, who has lived at the nearby Putnam Pointe apartments since they were built 12 years ago, said about 100 motorists with custom exhaust systems and high-pitched mufflers come to the garage each week to race. The racers, mostly 18 to 25-year-old men, come in shifts of eight to 10 every hour from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. every night, Hamilton said.

“An innocent pedestrian walking to their car in the garage after an evening in downtown Bend is going to be tragically hit by one of these racers,” Hamilton said. “Never mind the noise these cars routinely generate, somebody is going to get seriously hurt.”

Olivia Wilson, a local artist who also lives in the Putnam Pointe apartments, said she is bothered by the behavior of the skateboarders more than the racers. Wilson said she’s witnessed skateboarders throwing two-liter Coke bottles at passing cars and loudly skating on the concrete late into the night.

One skateboarder threatened her after she asked them to stop and go skate somewhere else, she said.

“When one of them threatens to kill me, I definitely don’t feel safe,” Wilson said.

Wilson feels the city is taking her concerns seriously. She hopes the new gate will deter the skateboarders, but she isn’t convinced it will completely keep them away.

“I do think it will mitigate the cars and the large group of people that come to hang out,” she said. “ I don’t know what it will do about skateboarders.”

Starting next week, those who want to park in the downtown garage can either take a ticket at the entrance or register on a mobile application. Instructions to pay for parking through the mobile app or after taking a paper ticket will be posted in the parking garage.

Marx said the city is working with downtown business owners to create a parking validation program so they can offer free parking to their customers.

“With that, we hope we can show business we still have them in mind,” Marx said.

Mindy Aisling, executive director of the Downtown Bend Business Association, said her organization worked closely with the city to develop the parking changes.

“We believe that the data supports the need for these changes, and we are grateful for these positive developments to downtown parking,” Aisling said. “Additionally, we’re excited to work with our local businesses to roll out the new parking validation program, which we are sure will be a success.”

Duncan McGeary, owner of Pegasus Books of Bend on Minnesota Avenue, questions why eliminating the free parking in the garage is necessary.

McGeary, whose store is a block away from the parking garage, said he’d like to hear more from concerned residents about the noise and trouble in the garage. He can hear the revving engines and skateboarders but they seem more like a nuisance than a serious, criminal problem, he said.

“This is an overreaction to a nuisance,” McGeary said. “But I’m certainly willing to listen to the other side on this.”

McGeary, whose store has been open downtown for the past four decades, said parking changes always seem to confuse customers. He worries the latest changes could have the same effect, and possibly make some customers feel unwelcome downtown.

“You don’t want to confuse customers,” he said. “You want it to be easy and straightforward.”