G is for Garage and Parking Management

G is for Garage and Parking Management

At KEEN we manage Industrial, Retail and Office assets for our investor clients and obviously parking needs and opportunities vary widely across such a diverse portfolio.  First consider the difference in parking needs based upon the asset type and then more specifically both the tenant and visitor profiles.

Warehouse: Some warehouse tenants barely need any parking.

Retail Varies depending upon the type of use, consider a large furniture showroom low density vs a fine jeweler vs a sandwich deli.  Retail stores 4-6/1000 while restaurants may need 7/1,000 square feet of lease space.

Office: Typical Office 3-4 spaces/1000,.  In some cases parking is needed just to serve the employees of the tenants, think of a law firm, not very densely populated at 3/1000 but a call center may need 10/1000.  In other cases your tenants may not have heavy employee needs but have heavy customer traffic ie a pediatrician’s office or a governmental office that is frequented by the public.

A Professional Property Management Firm will be experienced in the nuances between Code required minimums vs desired vs opportunities

Issues to consider:

Reserved vs unreserved (unreserved areas can park 1.3 cars per space because at any given time someone is out at an appointment, home sick, has their car in the repair shop, on vacation, etc. while Reserved spaces are “always occupied”)

Paid vs Free

Employee vs Guest

Short term vs long term stay

Covered vs surface

Land Cost & Population Densities (In 1999 I was involved in the urban infill site development of a movie theater and office building connected by a 10 story garage where the office used most of the spaces during the day and the theater used theirs mostly in the evening.  This was the first pay to park movie theater in Houston and by all definitions has been a very successful project from day one.)

Do employees and visitors drive their personal vehicles or use mass transit

Post Covid has many more employees working from home.

Flex or staggered hours

Electric charging stations (In 1994 I was invited by GM to participate in a study team and test driver for the first ever production all electric car the PreView in large part due to my suggestion that office building garages be utilized as charging stations.  Today this has become a very real challenge for Garages that don’t have the power from the utility in their facilities to run these charging stations.)

Current vs future needs

Is parking a required service for your tenants to operate,

is there an opportunity to charge for parking to create additional revenue for the project

Special Event where large crowds attend and pay premium rates.

If you have a Garage or Parking challenge at your Property and want to discuss, please give us a call.  We’re glad to talk through any pain point that may be causing you concerns.