Horton Plaza Parking Garage, San Diego CA

Garage smells like pee but what is prompting me to write the review is the lack of exit signage. My husband and I wandered around with another couple all looking for the exit for over 10 minutes. The regular exits were blocked because of construction. How incredibly unsafe. What is there were a fire or earthquake?

This parking garage is only two stars mainly for the fact that I did not feel safe. There are a lot of shady drugy looking homeless people around the entrances and stairwells. It is also hard to navigate and find entrances and exits to your destinations.

AVOID!

This place is a scam. $14 extra charge for parking on top of posted price of $48

I'll keep it real with you. It smells like pee and I'm 99% sure the lady didn't honor my parking validation on my last visit. I've personally never had an issue bigger than that but I'd take what others have said into account if you're someone with "bad luck".

Doesn’t even deserve 1*. It took more than 30 minutes to exit the car park and we were only on the 2nd floor. The attendants are so frustratingly slow.

Rental car was broken into and ransacked. Paperwork was thrown everywhere. Personal items were stolen. We recognize that this wasn’t the garage’s fault, but the parking ticket from the entrance booth was lost in the midst, and the garage forced us to pay a penalty on top of the already paid parking voucher acquired through SpotHero. Do not recommend.

Pretty filthy place compared to what it once was. Cheap parking for a reason in downtown a few blocks from Petco Park.

Such a rip off. They post $20 flat rate with a Padres ticket. We went out to dinner after and they wouldn’t honor it. Charged us $48. Not worth it considering everything reeks of urine and the facility is ill-kempt

Weird operator man at gate questioned whether we really went to the Padres game. Demanded to see padres gear and “giveaway. ” Rude and strange. Tried charging us extra. Still an ok place to park for padres games minus this trickster.

AVOID! Absolutely appalling service! Park anywhere but here if you can! 30min minimum just to get out of the lot and the lady in charge decided to close 1 of 2 lanes to exit making it extremely difficult and long times to exit. She could've closed it 10 minutes later to at least get people through. Very foolish and uninformed/trained staff. Really bad parking area. AVOID!

Avoid this place. We were downtown for a dinner and a comedy show and saw a sign advertising $20 flat rate parking. When we went to leave, the price was $34. We were told by the attendant that we had to show Padres tickets in order to get that rate. Bait and switch. And besides, the place reeks of urine and the walking exits are pretty dicey. Stay away!

We went to a show at the Balboa and made the mistake of parking in this garage. When we tried to leave, the line of cars trying to exit, through only 1 exit gate with 1 totally overwhelmed attendant, was horrific. Didn't move at all, the backup went up multiple levels, total gridlock. Many people WALKED over to the gate attendant and insisted over and over that he do something to get the line moving since it was not safe to leave 100s of cars idling and stuck in the structure for hours. People were about to hold up the other two gates so cars could just drive out. The attendant finally opened the gate so we could start exiting quickly, but this whole thing is dangerous and misleading. If the company is going to have such shoddy equipment and such understaffing, they should warn drivers in advance that you may be literally trapped in their garage for HOURS. We were lucky to get out in less than an hour, and whatever they are paying that poor lot attendant was not nearly enough. I will never use this garage again.

Do not park your vehicle here.
In just a 12 hour window of parking here, our vehicle was broken into (window smashed). Security claims that they do rounds, but didn’t notice our vehicle (it was the only one in that entire row, so there is no actual patrolling). One of the stolen items from our vehicle was the parking ticket. Management and the gate attendant were the most unreasonable, unprofessional, nasty people - refusing to let us out (despite our vehicle being covered in glass) unless we paid the lost ticket fee of $48.

Thankfully we used SpotHero, but the gate attendant would not accept this, despite his manager having already written down our reference number and telling him to let us out. He insisted I physically give him my phone so he can look at the SpotHero information, instead of reading the reference number to him. I told him I’d prefer not hand him my phone for safety reasons. He refused to even look at the information while I was holding my phone until I gave it to him. When I mentioned that “I’m trying to protect myself from COVID”, he replied without wearing a mask “oh, I have COVID now, and I don’t care. Give me your phone”. It seemed like the only way out, so I did - and he proceeds to ask me all the information about my SpotHero reservation clearly displayed on my phone, saying that “I can’t see it”.

The worst people, the worst service, and the absolute worst experience. Do yourselves the favor of parking anywhere but here!

My son was having a heart episode and we were in the line to leave and I was told I couldn’t leave so we had to exit other ways to get to a doctor

Absolutely do not park here. Parked for the Padres game, prepaid $15 online. Took over 45 minutes to exit the parking garage from the 2nd floor. While exiting we were directed to an outside lane by an employee. The lane we were directed to had no attendant only an automated payment booth and we could not scan our QR code, we asked the attendant and they said we had to pay $40 to exit. Why offer prepaid parking and take payment if you are not going to honor it? Never parking here again.

My advance ticket to park at Horton plaza
did not register with machine,
said it was not valid.
No where to call, I wrote but no response either.

Worst parking lot exit experience I have even had in my life and I've been driving for 45 years. It took 95 minutes to get out of the lot. The line barely moved, and when I got to the front I had the exact amount owed in cash ready for the parking attendant along with the ticket in hand (I knew the amount as it was pre-validated at an event with a flat rate). It took him literally 3 minutes for the exchange to occur and the gate to go up for me to exit. BTW the place just doesn't feel real safe if you use the stairs to get to the street. Broken glass and the occasional smell of urine also. If you must be in the area, take an UBER or public transportation, but at all costs avoid the Horton Plaza parking garage.