Brookfield officials are considering restructuring parking along the BNSF railroad tracks west of the intersection of Grand Boulevard and Brookfield, Fairview and Prairie avenues to create more parking space north of the tracks for visitors and commuters.
Deputy Police Chief Jim Mihalik presented a proposed revision to village code on Monday, Nov. 9, that would limit employee business permit parking to the north side of Burlington Avenue, freeing up existing employee parking on the south side of Brookfield Avenue for timed three-hour parking and reserved commuter parking.
Workers at businesses in downtown Brookfield can now obtain employee parking permits for spots on Burlington Avenue between Prairie and Sunnyside avenues and on Brookfield Avenue from 75 feet west of the downtown intersection to the last parking spaces west of Sunnyside, according to Brookfield’s code of ordinances.
Mihalik said existing signage does not reflect the current code, which was approved by trustees in January 2024, according to a memo from the meeting agenda.
Many employees continue to park on Grand Boulevard in the spots closest to their places of work, disincentivizing potential customers from patronizing them, Mihalik said. Some businesses’ employees, but not all of them, have complied with requests from police to stop parking on Grand, he said.
“What we want to do is have a little bit of messaging with the businesses initially to have them move, if they are parking in those areas, before we do any citations for the business employees,” Mihalik said. “Before we can really do that, we have to have an area that’s designated with signage for them.”
He referenced a parking study conducted in 2025 by KLOA, Inc., that showed Brookfield actually has more than enough parking near its downtown area, in contrast with widely held views by the community that there is a parking shortage.
“[They] said there’s ample spacing, but we could do a better job managing what parking is where,” Mihalik said. “Providing those areas along Burlington Avenue is going to give the direction for business employees to park there, thusly opening up more spaces for patrons to visit the businesses,” he said.
Mihalik said the parking spots on Burlington Avenue that could become employee permit parking are currently reserved for commuters, but they tend to be underutilized.
“For any of the commuters that currently park there, which is roughly four or five cars daily, we would have them move to the north side of the tracks on Brookfield Avenue,” Mihalik said.
He said the proposed changes account for the planned mixed-use development at 8921 Fairview Ave., often referred to as the “triangle property.”
Should trustees approve the changes at their next meeting on Nov. 23, Mihalik said Brookfield police would not begin to enforce them until 2027 due to the approaching chaos of the holidays, though he said new signage is expected to be installed by the end of the week.
Members of the village board seemed supportive of Mihalik’s proposal.
“It’s an audience we can reach out to directly, and we can educate them that we’re encouraging them to park in this spot,” Trustee Kyle Whitehead said of businesses and their workers. “What we heard from the study was that it’s not going to be top of mind for residents, especially for visitors, to park in that location, so if we can use that parking for employees and keep the other spaces open, that makes sense.”
