Motion reduction of an offshore structure at resonant frequency is essential for avoiding critical damage to the topside and mooring system. A damping plate has a distinct advantage in reducing the motion of a floating structure by increasing the added mass and the damping coefficient. In this study, the heave motion responses of a circular cylinder with an impermeable and a permeable damping plate attached at the bottom of the cylinder were investigated thru a model test. The viscous damping coefficients for various combinations of porosity were obtained from a free-decay test by determining the ratio between any pair of successive amplitudes. Maximum energy dissipation occurred at a porous plate with a porosity P = 0.1008. Experimental results for regular and irregular waves were compared with an analytical solution by Cho (2011). The measured heave RAO and spectrum reasonably followed the trends of the predicted values. A significant motion reduction at resonant frequency was pronounced and the heaving-motion energy calculated by the integration of the area under the heave motion spectrum was reduced by more than 75% by the damping plate. However, additional energy dissipation by eddies of strong vorticity and flow separation inside a porous damping plate was not found in the present experiments.