Milhaus transforms parking at downtown Cincinnati apartment building with Parkade

The Challenge

At Artistry Cincy prior to Parkade, residents could pay an extra fee on top of monthly rent for unassigned garage parking. But as occupancy increased and the garage filled up, parking became more time consuming for the property management team and less reliable for residents. 

As many property managers do, Milhaus managed parking operations at Artistry Cincy manually, relying on spreadsheets, Entrata, paper parking passes, enforcement tags and physical fobs (to control parking-gate access). This led to staff spending more than 10 hours per week on parking alone. Even with a dedicated security team to check parking passes and tag unauthorized vehicles, the endless task of organizing and maintaining their parking soon became overwhelming. 

One approach they took was to make parking unassigned, to reduce staff workload dealing with assigning specific spots and avoid dealing with complaints about someone parking in a resident’s assigned spots. However, that made enforcement much harder, as the security team would have to check every single vehicle to see if it was authorized.

“We had security that would check parking passes. But, of course, they're not here 24/7, so it made it really difficult to regulate,” says Sarah Homan, the Director of Residential Services at Milhaus. “There were just a lot of pieces that weren't organized very well.”

With their hands already full managing the existing parking system, Milhaus was also unable to offer any short-term parking options for residents and their guests. Instead, residents at Artistry Cincy would often resort to having their guests using the retail parking spaces out front or, even worse, risk unauthorized parking in the garage. Without formal visitor parking options, parking behavior grew worse and residents who paid for parking became frustrated — parking being unassigned made it easier for scofflaws to avoid detection. 

“We had a lot of people that would park in the garage that didn't have passes,” Homan remembers. “And residents would be angry because obviously they're the ones paying for a parking spot.”

In an effort to improve parking behavior and enforce violations, the security team would walk the garage to physically tag unauthorized vehicles, giving them 24 hours to move or else they would be towed. The result was an endless cat-and-mouse game where unauthorized parkers would often leave their vehicles for up to 23 hours and avoid towing at the last minute by simply reparking somewhere else in the garage. 

By only offering unassigned parking at a single price point and no viable short-term parking options at Artistry Cincy, Milhaus wasn’t only missing out on the opportunity to provide a better experience to residents and their guests. They were also missing out on the opportunity to generate additional parking revenue.

They recognized that managing their parking manually was unsustainable and leaving money on the table, and knew they needed a better solution. “As far as our garage goes, it wasn't really being managed to its highest potential,” says Homan. 

Enter Parkade. 

The Solution

In April 2023, Milhaus partnered with Parkade to transform parking at Artistry Cincy.

By automating day-to-parking management, making parking self-serve for residents and offloading customer service and enforcement to its 24/7 support team, Parkade enabled Milhaus to make the switch from unassigned to assigned parking. Instead of residents parking in the nearest empty parking spot they could find each time, Artistry switched to assigned parking as part of the Parkade launch.

“Honestly, I was a little nervous when they first introduced the idea,” Homan admits. “But it was all really seamless for us.” 

And both staff and residents saw the benefits almost immediately. It was a hit with residents like Patrice Dawson, who told us, “We were so grateful to get assigned parking!”

No more driving around looking for an available spot. 

“Residents really like the idea of knowing that they can always go to their spot,” says Bein. “That wasn't always possible before, and it can be really frustrating driving around trying to figure out where to park.”

Thanks in large part due to the increased satisfaction with assigned parking, Artistry raised parking prices on new parking leases almost 20%, from around $125/mo to $150/mo, a rare win-win for residents, who love and pay for the new amenity, and management, who is earning more revenue.

With the easy-to-use Parkade app, right from their fingertips, residents at Artistry Cincy now: 

• Book long and short-term parking 
• Sublease their spots to other residents or guests
• Report problems and instantly get temporary parking
• Pay for parking
• Move long-term parking spots
• Open the parking gate (and only for their respective spot level)

“Parkade has truly been a one stop shop for us. And it's made our lives so much easier,” says Homan.  

The Results

When Milhaus partnered with Parkade, they were looking for a solution that would help their staff manage parking operations, improve parking behavior and provide a better parking experience to residents. 

Yet Parkade has delivered even more than they had hoped for. 

Hours of time saved

Before automating day-to-day parking operations with Parkade, Sarah and her team were spending more than 10 hours per week managing parking at Artistry Cincy. Now, they’re proud to spend an average of just 20 minutes. 

“From a parking perspective, Parkade has given us a lot of our hours back.”

She continues, “I know maintenance definitely agrees with that because they're the ones that are hitting the grounds day-to-day.” 

For staff, Parkade provides a reliable database of up-to-date parking assignments and vehicle information. Now, the property management team can know, in real time, exactly which vehicles are supposed to be where, making the cat-and-mouse game of having to physically tag unauthorized parkers a thing of the past. 

When parking issues, like misparked or unauthorized vehicles, do pop up, Parkade has it covered. With Parkade, residents have the ability to report issues directly in the app, and the Parkade team provides 24/7 support to monitor and enforce parking violations. 

“From a resident's perspective, having that immediate solution is amazing,” explains Sarah Bein, the Assistant Property Manager. “So when they're reporting the problem, they’re not just left with nowhere to park. Now, they're given a temporary parking space until the issue is resolved, so there's flexibility instead of just being SOL.”

Gate-access has improved by leaps and bounds as well. Residents who pay for parking — and their guests — can open the gate from the Parkade app, so long as they’ve paid for parking. It makes for a stellar move-in experience for a new resident, as no double parking is needed to get a fob, as well as for guests, who can let themselves in.

Increase in revenue

With the help of Parkade, Milhaus has also seen a steady increase in parking revenue at Artistry Cincy.

Monthly parking revenue after fees has increased 95% (more than $21,000) since launching Parkade in April 2023 as the property approached stabilized occupancy. 

Artistry was 75% occupied in April when Parkade rolled, and hit full stabilization in July 2023 at 93%. That means the number of residents increased 25% in four months, but parking revenues doubled over the same time period. 

Parkade has also introduced a new revenue stream at Artistry Cincy: short-term parking revenue. The property now brings in more than $4,800/month on short-term parking alone with more than 1,200 short-term reservations per month. And both of those numbers continue to rise — all without adding any work for staff. 

Number of Short-term Reservations 

‍

“I am so grateful to have this for out-of-town guests to visit!!” - Heather McAlpin, resident at Artistry Cincy

And short-term parking isn’t the only thing that Artistry Cincy residents love about the switch to Parkade.

But Parkade doesn’t just allow residents to pick their parking spot. It also offers smarter pricing. Now, thanks to Parkade’s AI-based pricing algorithm, residents at Artistry Cincy can choose between parking at a dozen different price points, based on factors like proximity to the elevator or gate and garage level, and Sarah and her team can adjust prices in real time to control demand. 

“Parkade definitely takes the guesswork out of parking,” Homan says. “I appreciate that, and I know the residents do too.” 

Extra points with residents

Artistry Cincy, with popular stadiums-adjacent location and limited parking, has also shown the value of one of Parkade’s less-well-known features. 

While residents use Parkade to rent parking from management, residents can also use Parkade to sublease their parking spot to other Artistry residents. During lease up, this wasn’t common, but once the building became stabilized and parking got tight, subleasing became quite popular. 

The functionality even rode the Taylor Swift wave, as the pop superstar came to town in late July 2023. Parking nearby was going for $100/night during her three-night run, frustrating residents who were hosting friends visiting (with their car) for the show. 

Residents turned to Parkade, with residents who were out of town making their spots available for sublease for between $5-50/night. Other residents in desperate need of parking gobbled up the extra parking, as it was cheaper and much more secure than other options — while management took 25% of all this subleasing revenue. 

Some residents paid for almost an entire month of parking fees in just a few nights, while residents hosting visitors got to look like all-stars.

Ready to give Parkade a go? Reach out to our sales team to get started today.