The total utilization of transient parking in Boston is down between 10% and 25%, according to research conducted on parking and mobility by the Gensler Research Institute in 2017 and 2018.
The New York City Congestion Management Plan is expected to be higher than $11 for some drivers with a personal vehicle and it is clear that garage operators in New York City are threatened by that legislation which is aimed at curbing congestion.
According to a 2018 Deloitte Report, as early as 2040, more than half the miles traveled in the United States could be in shared autonomous vehicles (AVs). Urban millennials have a reliance on rideshare platforms like Uber, or carshare companies like Zip Car, which have thrown out the conventional school of thought when designing urban garages. Today, almost all designs of urban parking garages are designed to accommodate future conversion to alternative uses.
In Cincinnati, at their new headquarters for a Kroger subsidiary, only one of the four floors in the above-ground parking was meant ultimately for cars, the rest with a 14 ft floor-to-ceiling heights meant for repurposing for office space down the road. It used to be a no-brainer: if an office was included in a project with 300 people, that meant 250 cars. Gensler Architects has already designed conversions for about 300,000 sq ft of parking garages in the United States in the last two years and anticipates significantly more in the future.
Currently, the national average is 194 sq ft per employee, which is down 8.3% from 2009. Some industries, the parking numbers are even more dramatic.
The shift to transportation as a service is coming and people are predicting 50% less demand for parking spaces. As a consequence, developers do not want to build a 30-year investment if it’s going to be useful for only 10 or 15 years. The conundrum is that financiers/bankers backing developments are now risk averse and wary of adjusting parking lot allocations as it might impact a buildings ability to appeal to today’s tenants. Developers need to consider that a certain number of employees are either on vacation or sick or working from home. That, in and of itself, can reduce parking by 10% to 15%. At $30,000 a parking space, that can be significant in your proforma.