If you’ve ever eaten a bowl of cereal, you know that ratios are important. After all, you need to ensure you have the right ratio of milk to cereal. Too little milk and you’ll have to get a refill before you’re done unless you want dry cereal. Too much? Well, you’ll just have to get more cereal to avoid wasting the milk. Either way, it can spiral out of control pretty quickly.
Ratios are also important when it comes to commercial real estate (CRE), particularly when it comes to parking. There needs to be the right balance between need and availability; otherwise, you have to ensure your property is still appealing and meeting the needs of its tenants. Let’s take a look at the considerations a CRE pro must have concerning the availability of parking spots.
Are There Enough for Tenants?
This is the first question you might ask, especially if you’re a landlord. For tenants, parking can actually make or break a lease due to factors like cost and availability. If tenants have more employees than the square footage of their space provides in parking, they’ll have to figure out a Plan B (e.g. they might call on employees to get creative with their transportation or walk long distances from the building to extra parking). If parking space is an issue, make sure the pros of your property outweigh this con.
Should Parking Be An Extra Cost?
If you do have an improper tenant-to-parking space ratio, you might need to make additional parking spaces an extra cost. That way, the tenants who truly value parking spaces (or have lots of employees) can pay for it as needed. As long as you communicate that the additional cost is because of limited space or another valid reason, it shouldn’t impact tenant satisfaction as much as it would if you simply charged for parking in general.
Is Other Transportation Available?
This is especially a hot topic in cities that are spread out and don’t have reliable/widely available public transportation. You can get away with a space that doesn’t have a healthy parking ratio if other transportation is easily available. If it isn’t, the parking at your commercial real estate property is a bit more important.
Is There a Seasonal Influx?
We’ve all seen the vast parking lots that could surely never be all filled… right? It may appear this way due to seasonal influxes. Whether because of the weather, nearby events, sports or another reason, keeping seasonal parking influxes in mind will help you avoid being surprised by them.
Can You Track Parking Appropriately?
Of course, you can’t really do much about any of these considerations if you aren’t tracking your parking properly. (You can’t improve what you can’t measure.) Fortunately, commercial real estate software like Quarem has parking tracking features that keep you apprised of things like parking allotment per lease and any associated costs, in addition to other valuable insights.
Want to see how commercial real estate software like Quarem can help you better plan for parking and other aspects of your portfolio? Request a demo today.
