Just in time for the holiday shopping season, the city will begin bumping up parking-meter rates by 50 percent beginning Nov. 30.

Crews will begin resetting the rates that day and should get to all 4,200 meters citywide within a month, said Randy Bowman, the administrator for the city's division of mobility options.

That means rates for two-hour meters will increase from $1 to $1.50 in the least expensive zone, and $3 to $4.50 in the most expensive zone Downtown.

Short North merchants, already stung by the recession, aren't happy with the rate hike, John Angelo, executive director of the Short North Business Association, told city officials and business leaders who met yesterday to discuss the changes.

Others, including Susan Oilar, owner of Three Dog Bakery at 611 N. High St., said she wasn't even aware of it.

"We fight to get people to come shopping here," she said. "We already fight the stereotype that there's not enough parking here."

Short North and Downtown restaurant owner Elizabeth Lessner said the impact on business could be significant.

"It's going to take a roll of quarters to eat lunch at the Tip Top," she said, referring to her E. Gay Street restaurant.

The city revealed last month that it was considering a rate hike, flooring some business and community leaders. The city is forming an informal working group to discuss meter issues.

The hike would raise annual revenue from $3.1 million to $4.6 million. The city has meters Downtown, near Ohio State University and in the Arena District, Brewery District and other neighborhoods.

The city says the increase will help pay to replace aging, failing meters beginning next year. The last major replacement was in 1998, Bowman said. It will take at least three years to replace them with meters that take credit cards, something Angelo wants.

But $1.4 million of the funds collected from the new rates will be placed in reserve and used, if needed, for a new 500-room Hilton Hotel across N. High Street from the Greater Columbus Convention Center. The county is guaranteeing the bonds financing that project.

The city money would be used only as a last resort, said Bill Jennison, executive director of the Franklin County Convention Facilities Authority.

He expects the revenue and bed taxes the hotel generates to pay the debt service. If that's not adequate, then the $1.8 million a year from land leases the authority has on Nationwide Arena, the Hyatt Regency and the Drury Inn & Suites should cover it.

The city also has plans to expand meters to other areas. It plans to buy about 6,000 new meters to replace old ones and add meters elsewhere while storing several hundred, Bowman said.

Bowman said officials haven't decided where to add meters. But Mike Brown, the city's urban ventures coordinator, said the city might look east or west of Downtown, perhaps near Columbus State or the Columbus College of Art & Design.

Meters generate a lot of money for the city, not only from quarters and dimes fed into them but also fines collected from them.

From 2003 through 2008, the city collected an average of $1.9 million a year in fines from tickets for expired meters, including $1.3 million in 2008, said Rick Tilton, the city's public service spokesman.

The fine for an expired meter is $25, he said.

mferenchik@dispatch.com