How to design the best parking lot layout for a new development

September 26, 2023

TABLE OF CONTENTS

In charge of designing parking at a new development? Read on to learn:

Overview

Accessing parking is one of the foundational elements for a development in the United States. Depending on the parking requirements of the local jurisdiction, well-designed parking will be essential to making sure the development operates as it was intended to.

Bad parking design can easily lead to a stressful situation for people trying to park their cars or simply navigate out of the parking area. It can also lead to situations where the parking doesn’t work for the development it was built for.

Good parking design, on the other hand, works for all the users of the parking lot, from pedestrians navigating to and from their cars to people driving around looking for a spot in their respective cars.

Depending on the building’s use, the parking design will vary. Residential parking design, for example, might look very different from the parking design for a commercial big box store or restaurant. Mixed-use developments provide an interesting intersection of parking uses, allowing for some interesting designs to be implemented.

On top of the differences between parking for various uses, each site will have its own specific design needs. As you’re designing your parking, you will likely have to adjust a garage or lot to the needs of your site and the building it will serve, as well as any other constraints you are working with. 

First, let’s talk about some basic parking design principles.

Basic Parking Design Principles

Getting a good grasp of the basics are integral to designing a functional parking area, allowing traffic to flow effectively while also fitting in as many parking spaces as possible.

Above all, designing a parking area is all about fitting in the most parking spaces for the least amount of money. As Elaine Uang, an architect that works on multifamily housing in California, points out, “parking is a geometry puzzle that is unique to every development.” 

Elements such as 90-degree spaces and double-loaded drive aisles allow you to fit in the most spaces and fulfill the parking requirements of the local jurisdiction at the same time, making efficiency the design element that informs all other decisions."

Parking is even more important when you consider the implications for the development as a whole: “Often you have to figure out how to fit in cars first, and then plan the design of the building.” Ms. Uang explains, detailing how the size of the parking area will influence the dimensions of the building.

Here are a few of the most important principles when designing a parking area:

  • Aisles and rows should be located parallel to the long side of the site, helping to maximize the amount of spots you can fit in.
  • Orient your parking spots on each side of an aisle
  • The size of your aisles will depend on if you create one-way aisles or two-way aisles. Angled spaces often work better with one-way aisles, while 90 degree parallel spaces are better with two-way aisles.
  • Typical sizes for aisles and parking spaces are 24-feet wide for a two-way aisle, and 9 x 18 feet for a parking spot.
  • Avoid designing dead-end areas in parking lots. Ideally, there should always be a way to drive through parking aisles in either direction, avoiding congestion as people pull in and out of spots.
  • Sometimes a dead-end might be part of the design in order to maximize the amount of parking spaces.
  • Make your parking lot rectangular for the most efficient parking layout.
  • Flow of traffic and pedestrians for better movement of safety is an important consideration.
  • Make sure your parking lot or structure doesn’t get in the way of your development, both visually and functionally.

Residential Parking Design

Residential parking areas are intended for long-term use for tenants. This makes efficient space usage and security even more critical for your parking area. 

For a parking lot design in residential, most architects gravitate toward 90-degree spaces and a rectangular parking lot design. This allows you to fit the most spaces into the smallest area. You’ll also want to properly mark each spot so that people know which space is theirs. EV infrastructure should ideally also be provided, especially if you expect many tenants to have electric cars.

At a minimum, at least think through the EV infrastructure and where chargers (and required conduit) will eventually go.

A designer should also consider what types of cars will be kept in the residential lot or parking garage. Many cars in the United States are larger, making it difficult to park in smaller spaces. A residential development that wants to rent out space to their tenants may miss out on possible revenue — or even apartment leases — if they can’t effectively use all their spaces.

In fact, a recent development had this very problem, and were forced to remove several of their spaces because of parking conditions that were too tight. This led to a loss in revenue that could have been avoided with better parking design. 

All spots in red, after construction, were pulled from use to give that space over to the spots on either side:

Commercial Parking Design

Commercial parking design stresses efficiency and convenience over long-term parking use. For added convenience, architects more frequently used angled spaces in commercial applications. 

That’s because angled spaces at 45 to 60 degrees allow for faster and easier egress in and out of the spot. People can pull in and out fairly quickly without the added stress of navigating a packed parking lot with 90 degree spaces. When designing 45 to 60 degree parking lots, you will want to use one-way aisles.

Because commercial parking lots have a lot of constant traffic, safety is also a major concern. You’ll want to avoid possible collisions with proper signage and infrastructure that supports pedestrian safety. This could translate into a sidewalk in between aisles or an area labeled as a pedestrian walkway that allows people to safely navigate a lot.

For commercial uses such as home improvement stores, larger aisles and spaces should be considered due to the higher number of trucks that will be using the parking area.

Office Parking Design

Office parking design will depend largely on how the employees are getting to work. If you are building a car-oriented office building, enough parking for the amount of employees working out of the office will be vital. 

Office parking lots typically utilize 90-degree spots — in part because most spots see cars pulling in and out twice per day. So egress is less important, and developers prioritize fitting as many cars as possible.

One solution for office parking is unbundled parking — meaning drivers pay to park — allowing developers to reduce the number of parking spaces and make their design challenge easier. Taking payments for parking also allows developers to better rationalize sharing parking between neighboring uses. 

Charging for parking allows you to reduce parking need, as workers who don’t need to drive will make alternative transportation arrangements. Working with surrounding parking lots and garages to work out a shared parking plan will, in turn, reduce your parking burden even more.

An office development parking area will prioritize safe, secure parking for long-term periods. Because there won’t be as much in and out as commercial parking, less care needs to be given to convenience and pedestrian access. Typically, there will be only a few points of access to the office building, making that a simpler design element to the overall parking design. Pedestrian safety, of course, will still be important.

Mixed-Use Parking Design

Parking design for mixed-use lots provides an interesting problem to solve. Your parking area has to meet the needs of multiple user groups, who have different parking needs that may conflict at times.

Office and commercial uses can often complement each other. Spaces used by employees during the day can be used for restaurants, theaters, and events at night. Many mixed-use projects have been able to save money this way, such as $1 million slashed off the Runway at Playa Vista development in Los Angeles, CA. 

The US Air Force, not exactly an organization known for pushing the creative envelope on real estate development, leverages shared parking at places like Tyndall AFB to drastically cut down on the parking they needed to build.

In the case that a mixed-use development outgrows a surface parking lot, an architect can get creative with a podium garage by incorporating it into the building’s design. For example, you can make the garage’s entire first floor retail, allowing for a more pleasing facade while you put the actual parking under or over it.

There are even more creative solutions possible, such as implementing more architectural elements or amenities such as gardens and other usable spaces. For example, one parking garage built a soccer field on its top level, allowing the garage to become integral to the ways people can use the development.

Other Design Aspects

There are many other design characteristics to consider in a parking lot, including drainage, lighting, and pedestrian access. Elements such as landscaping will improve the parking area’s aesthetic qualities, while good lighting will ensure easy navigation and safety in your parking lot.

Pedestrian safety and access is very important for parking areas. Here are some important elements:

  • Provide access points for pedestrians to and from your parking lot so that they navigate it safely and easily.
  • Consider adding sidewalks in the middle of double aisles for pedestrians to walk on, or even marking them in parking aisles where it makes sense (and where space allows), like this parking lot. 
  • Make sure the parking lot is well lit and has easy-to-understand signage.
  • Speed bumps and humps will slow down traffic and make it safer for pedestrians to cross the parking lot.

During the design of the development, you have a valuable opportunity to create a better and more efficient parking experience for those who will use your building in the future. With a clear parking strategy and a vision of the development’s role in its greater area, you’ll have the freedom to design a parking lot that works for everyone involved, from the tenants of the building to the community as a whole.

On top of efficiency and functionality, great parking design can be an opportunity to expand the development’s impact, allowing it to serve many groups of people while also providing the type of parking your development needs to flourish.

Parking Management Solutions

When building a parking lot or reassessing how you manage existing parking, there are many solutions to consider. Unbundled parking, for example, can be difficult to allocate and manage with spreadsheets alone. 

Technology solutions such as Parkade help you figure out the appropriate price and rental agreement for your parking spots, and take all parking assignments, reservations, customer service, enforcement and payment needs off the shoulders of the on-site management team.

Ready to get started? Reach out to Parkade's sales team to learn more.
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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.

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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.

Ready to transform parking?

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