From a parking spot, WePark creator reflects on helping ignite the parklet trend

July 24, 2020

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In April of 2019, Victor Pontis did something ordinary — he grabbed a table and chair, and sat down to do some work. What was out of the ordinary, though, was where he did it: In a parking spot.

As one does, he announced his work location in a tweet:

The tweet quickly went viral, and soon, Victor's whimsical idea was spreading like wildfire. From France to Santa Monica to New Zealand, others joined in on the fun and propped up tables and chairs around the world. He coined the idea of working from a parking spot WePark, and invited anyone to join the fun.

This year, to commemorate the occasion, Victor had big plans to do an anniversary event in April of 2020. And then COVID-19 hit, states issued lockdown orders and took his grand plans down it with the orders.

Victor was building on an evolution of the idea that's slowly spread over the last 15 years: That parking can and should be repurposed parking for other things. In a twist of fate, while COVID-19 nixed an anniversary, the COVID-19 recovery has spread the idea of repurposing parking faster than even Victor could have dreamed.

In light of the massive explosion in popularity — and mass legalization, often through emergency measures — we're seeing in downtowns across America, we sat down with Victor to revisit the 2019 WePark spark that helped ignited imaginations in 2020.

Victor, enjoying a return to his familiar locale of choice — an idle parking spot.

Parkade team: So, a lot has changed since last year. What do you think about the fact that businesses and cities all over the world are repurposing parking for all sorts of things now? 

Victor Pontis: It's been amazing to see. It's not a huge surprise actually, because car storage is generally such an underpriced use of such prime urban real estate. So when businesses look to better utilize outdoor space, the parking space out front makes complete sense.

Obviously COVID-19 is a terrible thing, but as part of the recovery, I have loved seeing all these parklets spring up and make people rethink how we use street space.

Parkade: What role if any do you think WePark played in helping ignore the parklet movement?

Victor: Parklets weren't new by any means, but I think what I tried to demonstrate to people is how silly the economics of parking are. If it's really only going to cost $.25/hr to get a prime parking spot in one of the most valuable real estate markets in the world, why not use that space for something creative and an economically productive, like coworking? 

I think, even if briefly, it got people thinking that "Maybe we should use this space for something else." 

Parkade: Do you think, as part of this parklet craze, we'll see a more permanent shift in how people use parking? 

Victor: I really hope so! Businesses all over the place are taking the parklet/WePark idea to the max, and taking over parking spaces for their business needs. What's crazy is that, pre-COVID, that was pretty much illegal in most places. Suddenly, cities and businesses are seeing the value in using prime real estate for dining, or workouts or retail racks and having people park elsewhere.

After all, people drive places to go somewhere and visit a business they love, or spend time in a great neighborhood. No one is driving someone just because the parking is great. I think this new explosion in popularity of parklets could really push people to rethink what's possible, and stop doing things like requiring minimum parking requirements for some or all businesses, or at least giving people and businesses more control over how they use their outdoor space.

Parkade: What's your favorite parklet use you've seen as part of the COVID recovery? 

Victor: Honestly, it's simple, but it's just expanded dining space. Perhaps it's not as creative as something like coworking, but I believe it's what cities need most — more vibrant spaces for people to eat and drink. So many cities are lacking car-free plazas — San Francisco, one of the most car-free cities in America, has nearly zero streets that are shut to cars and only open to dining.

It's been amazing seeing so many restaurants expand their dining space as part of this recovery, and it's my favorite part.

Parkade: Any advice for businesses wanting to take over their parking space? 

Victor: Just do it! If it's legal, build a parklet in front of your business as soon as you can (hint: Parkade has a great guide for businesses on creating parklets and the different design options out there). If it's not legal, ask your city council or mayor why it isn't, and get them to change that law.

Parkade: How can regular people get involved in transforming street space? 

Victor: Well, they should definitely visit the WePark website and sign up! We do plan to have more events, even though we missed the one-year anniversary due to COVID.

Moreover though, people should think creatively about how they make an example out of how silly our parking policies are. We took a desk and chair, paid the meter and coworked in a parking spot. At $2.75 for an hour split by some friends who joined me, it was far cheaper than a WeWork for 2 hours! That's partially because we massively parking (which is pretty much only used for car storage) here in the US.

Whether it's a business applying for a parklet, pushing to only open a street for diners and pedestrians, or grabbing a chair or a kettlebell and renting a spot for your own non-auto use for an hour, I hope people will just get active, and get silly, and show people how we can do new things with parking.

Parkade: You seemed to like the 'silly' part of that.

Victor: Definitely. From racial justice to climate change, there are a lot of really serious, really important protests going on in the world.

What I love about what we did is we did something kind of silly. We didn't take it too seriously, and tried to be light-hearted. And I think that's one of the things that resonated with people.

Some things are serious and should be treated as such. But with other demonstrations, we should bring some levity to how we demonstrate a new concept. It just might be the thing that makes people emphasize, and change their mind.

Parkade: So, what are you up to these days, beyond parking? 

Victor:  Thought you'd never ask! It'a also pretty COVID-related. Seeing the popularity of video conferencing generally, and Zoom specifically, I've launched a service that lets people create their own branded landing pages for Zoom events. Teachers, trainers, cooks and all kinds of people that host both free and paid Zoom events are using it. It's called ZmURL — check it out! We just passed 10,000 events on the platform.

Parkade: Congrats! How many of those events were in a parking space? 

Victor: Ha! I'll bet you one thing: We'll see a lot more events in parking spaces this year than ever before. And hopefully it only grows from here.

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BlogParking Management Software ROI

Investigating the ROI of parking management software

With parking being one of the largest drivers of ancillary revenue at multi-family properties, it's imperative to get it right. But just how much return can you expect from parking management software? Read on to find out.

Published: August 7, 2024
Hannah Michelle Lambert
Content Writer
Boosting ancillary revenue is often a major focus for property managers and owners alike.

Especially given that the baseline forecast for rent growth is slightly lower this year than average (2.5% versus 2.9%), properties are increasingly looking for ways to raise their bottom line without compromising the quality of living for their residents. 

One often overlooked but significant opportunity lies in parking. If managed well, it’s a potential treasure trove for additional revenue. But that’s only if it’s done well. 

Parking tends to be one of the biggest thorns in the side of a property manager. Because traditional systems — like spreadsheets and rentable items — are not built to handle tenant parking efficiently, teams aren't able to reap the full benefits parking has to offer as an ancillary revenue source. As soon as a team makes the decision to invest in a proper parking management system, the benefits often more than pay for themselves.

In this guide, we will explore those benefits, touching on both the financial and operational upside of a solid parking management strategy.

We’ve combed the data from all of our clients to identify the exact numbers to prove that there truly is ROI in parking management systems like Parkade. 

Understanding parking management

Before we dive into the numbers, let’s first establish a baseline of what exactly parking management entails. As any property manager will tell you, it involves much more than just hanging a tag on a resident’s car and calling it a day.

The key components of a parking management system are:

  • A system of record to track parking assignments, lease lengths, vehicle details, and parking prices, ideally integrated with your PMS.
  • An enforcement strategy that ensures parking rules are clear and establishes consequences (typically fines or towing) when someone breaks them.
  • A method to pay for parking, whether it’s bundled in with rent (which we don’t recommend) or paid for in a separate system.
  • A self-serve system for residents and guests to book long or short-term parking. 
  • If there is a gate on the property, provisioning and deprovisioning of gate entry should also be considered in the parking management strategy. 

The old-school way of addressing these needs isn’t cutting it anymore. Many properties are still using manual processes, like an Excel spreadsheet, rentable items, or even a physical piece of paper to keep track of their parking. 

And far too often, properties are relying too heavily on staff members to handle parking matters that take up a significant amount of time, like enforcement or guest parking.

Moreover, there’s one point that just can’t be ignored: If you’re still using old-school parking management systems like spreadsheets and rentable items, you’re leaving money on the table. 

So the parking management we’re discussing here that delivers positive ROI is a technology-led solution that automates all aspects of parking operations, improves resident experience, and unlocks new revenue streams.

Setting the stage: Residents value good parking

Delivering on resident expectations should be a main priority for any multifamily property, and parking is one area of the resident experience that is especially critical to consider here. 

65% of property managers cite parking as a top concern among residents. Whether it’s for existing residents or prospective residents, providing a simple, reliable, and flexible parking solution has a direct impact on the success of your property. 

Part of this is due to reputation. Properties have reported a 44% increase in their reputation scores after fixing their parking problems. And this boost in a reputation score can trickle into several different areas, boosting not only the number of new residents, but also leading to more renewals from existing residents.

But we know you want the hard dollar amounts, so let’s talk more about some real-world outcomes that Parkade's parking management software delivers. 

So, what do the numbers say about the ROI of parking management software?

Long-term net parking revenue for stabilized buildings

Once properties implement a system to help them optimize pricing and management of long-term parking, they see immediate gains in their long-term parking revenue. The average 6-month increase in net long-term parking revenue for the cohort of 7 properties we sampled was 24%, translating into thousands of extra dollars. 

Long-term net parking revenue for lease-ups

Better parking management also empowers properties to far outperform their projected revenue from long-term parking when they’re in the lease-up phase. 

On average, properties from the cohort we sampled estimated that they would bring in $15,925 on average from long-term parking revenue per month. But thanks to Parkade helping them optimize their parking strategy, better enforce their parking rules, and keep a better record of who is parking where, the average revenue from long-term parking was $23,450 on average, which is a 47.3% increase from the estimates in their pro forma. 

Total net parking revenue for stabilized buildings

For buildings that are already at full occupancy, the average increase in parking revenue sits at 31% once they implement Parkade’s parking management solution. 

Revenue metrics for lease-ups

The best time to implement new parking management systems is at the inception of the building. Getting parking right from the beginning ensures that you are maximizing total parking revenue from day one, as well as establishing a positive reputation around parking. Many properties underestimate the revenue from long-term parking and may often leave out potential short-term parking revenue altogether. 

When a few properties we worked with during this phase were estimating parking revenue at the start of their lease-up, they estimated around $35,000 on average. But the results, since they decided to go with Parkade right from the start, blew those numbers out of the water. In reality, they were able to bring in closer to $58,000 on average, which is a 66% increase from the estimates.

Short-term parking: An opportunity

The boost in revenue continues to be apparent when you zoom out to look at short-term parking, too. Short-term guest parking can be one of the most underutilized revenue streams, and represents a huge opportunity for multi-family properties to tap into. However, it's historically been very difficult or impossible for properties to see this revenue without parking management software that automates the process.

Especially in popular areas, like city centers or near shopping malls and sporting arenas, there’s often a high demand for short-term parking. When properties put a system in place to monetize this guest parking, they can unlock hundreds or even thousands of extra dollars per month. 

Automating guest parking

Without a good system in place to manage parking, many properties often leave guest parking as a free-for-all (meaning they don’t make money from it), or if they do attempt to monetize guest parking, it turns into a massive beast to handle. 

Erica, a property manager at Thrive Properties, told us about her pre-Parkade experience with guest parking, preventing them from delivering on a key resident need: “There was no world where we were doing short-term parking by the hour or even by the day because there was just no way to manage that.”

If you have a complicated or inconvenient system for guests to reserve parking, especially one where they have to walk into the office during office hours, guests are often more likely to try to get away with not paying for parking. (And if you don’t have a great system to enforce parking, they may very well get away with it).

With the right parking system, you’re able to give guests a flexible, 24/7 solution, removing any previous barriers that may have caused them to break the rules out of convenience. 
Maximizing guest parking availability

Another way that manual parking management may stand in the way of effectively monetizing guest parking is the inability to accurately track how many spots you have available for guests to reserve in the first place. 

Taylor, the property manager at Strata and Venue, shared her experience of desperately needing more guest parking and discovering they had a full 50 more open spots than they thought. 

“We actually had way more spots that we could have used for guest parking, but we didn’t know that because of the way we were using our parking system. Not to mention, we wouldn’t have the system to leverage them without a Parkade.”

When your parking management system gives you an accurate, real-time view of available spots, you can leverage guest parking to its full capacity.

Utilizing idle parking spots

A reliable parking-management system also allows you to make the most use of every single spot available. With technology that uses smart inventory management, properties can release idle or unassigned parking spots into the system for short-term use. So spots that would have otherwise been sitting empty between leases can suddenly be leveraged as an extra revenue-generating spot in the meantime. 

Net revenue for short-term guest parking

When properties have a great system to implement paid guest parking, without putting too much strain on their staff, they immediately see a boost in revenue.

They’re able to turn an operation that was perhaps bringing in no money — or some revenue, perhaps at the expense of staff time —  into a significant revenue source with little-to-no staff involvement. 

On average, Parkade customers experience a 303% increase in their guest parking revenue after Parkade fees. And there were some properties that saw almost a 400% increase.

Opex (operational expenses) savings

When handled manually, parking management can steal hours from on-site property management teams every week. Between fielding requests or complaints from residents, tracking down parking records, walking the lot to enforce rules, handling guest parking, and manually inputting rentable items, parking can quickly balloon into one of the most time-consuming tasks for staff.

Parking management software can automate away a lot of the most tedious aspects. For example, Parkade gives residents self-service access to reserve and pay for parking (while allowing for any rule sets the property wants to enforce), provides hands-off enforcement support, and even automates gate access via the app so that teams don’t have to worry about distributing or replacing clickers. 

Properties have seen that the time teams no longer spend on parking leads to a direct decrease in operational expenses. As a result, they can redistribute those team members' time to more meaningful tasks.

On average, we’ve seen properties decrease their operational expenses by $60,000-$100,000 from savings on parking operations alone. This means that they were able to save what’s equal to a full-time employee’s salary. 

Annual NOI improvement

All of the revenue metrics mentioned up until this point have been after Parkade's fees. 

When you roll everything up together — both the increase in revenue (after fees) and the opex savings — investing in parking management software has an incredibly positive impact on annual Net Operating Income (NOI).

Whether teams are looking to calculate their property value, secure financing, make operational decisions, or pitch to investors, NOI is one of the most critical numbers to boost. 

By coming at NOI from both sides, in terms of opex savings and revenue generation, parking management technology is extremely low-hanging fruit when it comes to boosting NOI. 

At the Parkade properties we surveyed, teams saw anywhere from a $66,000 to $126,000 improvement to their net operating income from parking alone. 

While parking may not seem like it deserves to be the biggest priority for many properties, the numbers tell a different story. By investing in a proper parking solution, properties are able to significantly improve upon all of their business goals, whether it’s boosting revenue, streamlining operations, improving resident experience, or all of the above. 

About Parkade

Parkade is the #1 parking management software for multi-family buildings. With our resident-facing app and staff dashboard, parking runs itself. Your team will boost revenue, reduce time spent on parking, and improve experience for residents and guests, all without lifting a finger.

Explore our features below, built for communities just like yours.

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