Cincinnati apartment boosts resident experience and revenue with Parkade

The Challenge

As they do at most of their properties, Crawford Hoying offered residents at Current at the Banks reliable, assigned parking for an additional fee on top of monthly rent. But at a downtown location like Current at the Banks, having the ability to book visitor parking for their guests was also important to residents. 

With limited space available to offer visitor parking, demand among residents quickly became more than the property management team could meet. Soon, managing visitor parking at Current at the Banks became overwhelming. 

“We weren’t really having issues with our resident parking, but guest parking was really starting to become a nuisance for us,” remembers Keith Nunn, the Community Manager at Crawford Hoying. 

In an attempt to meet residents’ needs as well as they could, the property team would make a limited number of parking spots available to book for visitor parking at the start of each week on a “first come, first served” basis. 

“We would get all these requests on Monday, but we could only put up a certain amount of spots each time to make sure that we didn't end up overfilling the garage,” says Keith. 

“So four spots in one garage, four spots in the other garage and then, next thing you know, your spots are filled up for the weekends.”

Despite spending 6-10 hours / week managing parking operations, including 2-3 hours / week on visitor parking requests alone, Keith and his team were struggling to keep up. And residents grew frustrated. 

“We ran into a lot of issues where our residents were getting upset. They would say, ‘Oh, you guys told us you had guest parking. But then we go to sign up for it and we can't get it because all of the spaces are taken.’”

With other nearby parking options costing as much as $75 / vehicle on game days —  thanks to a hot Cincinnati Bengals team — some residents even risked having their guests park illegally at Current at the Banks. But, as Keith explains, enforcing parking violations was a “crapshoot.” In the time that it took the property management team to identify an unauthorized vehicle, they were usually gone anyway. 

“We just didn't have the means to really patrol it,” he said.

Managing parking at Current at the Banks had become unsustainable for Crawford Hoying. 

Thankfully, Parkade changed all of that. 

The Solution

In January 2023, Crawford Hoying launched Parkade to transform parking at Current at the Banks and provide a better parking experience for residents. 

“Erik Wood, one of our VPs of Property Managment at Crawford Hoying, had used Parkade at one of our other communities in Dayton,” says Keith. 

“We were already looking for someone to help us with managing visitor parking requests, so as soon as Erik told us about Parkade, it was really a no brainer, so I can get my hands off this stuff.”

With Parkade, Crawford Hoying automated day-to-parking operations at Current at the Banks, making reserving short and long-term parking self-serve for residents and offloading customer service and enforcement to Parkade’s 24/7 support team. And Parkade’s dynamic, app-based approach made it a smooth transition. Both staff and residents saw the benefits almost immediately. 

“There was just a seamless amount of communication with rolling it out,” Keith shares, excitedly. “It was one of the easiest transitions I've ever had when it comes to adopting a new program and rolling out. It was very easy and seamless.” 

The Results

Today, time spent on managing parking at Current at the Banks is minimal, Keith says — even on game days. 

By switching to Parkade, Crawford Hoying is getting the most out of its parking and providing a better resident experience at Current at the Banks. 

Residents use the Parkade app to book short and long-term parking, sublease their spots to other residents and guests, register their vehicle information, report parking problems and even control parking gate access. 

Now, booking visitor parking at Current at the Banks is easy, and residents are thrilled. In fact, the community sees more than 1,250 short-term parking reservations / month.

Short-term Parking Reservations: 

“The garage pretty much stays full,” Keith shares. “Even the spaces that would have been not occupied before having you guys are now occupied because people have the means of getting guest parking whenever they want, which has made it much, much easier.” 

And better parking utilization has paid off… Literally.

Thanks to Parkade, Crawford Hoying has seen parking revenue at Current at the Banks jump 20%, from $38,600 per month to more than $46,300 per month. And that’s net, after Parkade’s fees.

“Since introducing Parkade, I would say where we’ve seen the biggest impact is our parking revenue,” says Keith. 

“We were able to generate revenue before, but not in the way that we wanted to,” he continues. “The way that Parkade tracks it — and that residents can pay directly through Parkade itself — has just made it a more streamlined process.” 

When asked what advice he might have for other property managers, Keith had this to say: 

“I would just tell them that Parkade is going to take a lot of stress off of your staff when it comes to managing your garage operations," he says. "And from a revenue standpoint as well, you're selling spaces that normally would have been vacant beforehand. It just speaks volumes about what Parkade is doing — it’s so awesome.”