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Old 07-21-2014, 08:46 AM
 
3,695 posts, read 4,965,277 times
Reputation: 2069

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Quote:
Originally Posted by jade408 View Post
Here are some rough costs to build a parking spot. I imagine in Chicago, new buildings require below grade parking at roughly $30-40k per space. And yes developers pass that cost on to residents. Parking also reduces profitability. Developers could build more units with the space reserved for parking.

Construction Costs for Parking Stalls | Square Feet Blog Commercial Real Estate Blog
Nope there is no requirement for bellow grade parking in town. What sometimes happens is that the new building just takes up less of the lot to accommodate the increase in parking or has more floors. Some skyscrapers with residential units like John Hancock have above ground floors reserved for parking. They could build more units, but remember the cost of rent is driven by demand and just because the building has more units does not mean it is going to get any cheaper. So long as you can find someone willing to pay the price the rent stays high. The most common type of parking is at grade on the surface folllowed by detached parking garage. Bellow grade parking for an building is rare.

 
Old 07-21-2014, 08:59 AM
 
2,081 posts, read 3,556,059 times
Reputation: 2375
Quote:
Originally Posted by chirack View Post
The reality is the city of Chicago forces the developer to build legal parking and the city has less towing to do as well as better traffic flow. The effect isn't the same as Chicago building the parking itself(Chicago once did own some downtown parking garages but privatized them.). The urban burb of Oak Park does own it's own parking lot structure that it maintains and staffs. Chicago does not maintain nor staff my garage. If Chicago did decide to build a parking structure the city would be responsible for maintenance and security as well as clearing the snow out of it. These are on-going expenses. It is much cheaper for the city to push the need for parking back on to the developer or the owner of the property.

As for more parking than the market will bear, please. Retail stores often go beyond the parking minimum so that sales are not limited by the number of cars. The only places where people tend to skimp on parking is for development of residential housing....sometimes and even then an house with an garage esp. an two car one is worth more than one without. Maybe for some office buildings you might just build the min. but many times the parking lot is bigger than the min.




You make the assumption that the car is an burden and that people are trapped with them. I am so grateful I have an car, everyday. I know people who live without them and it ain't fun. Sure if you have an certain situation like work in the loop, and live in an area without parking the car could be more trouble than it is worth but the people who put up with this tend to be young white collar singles or couples. People with families or less into parting tend to have cars. Anyway the reason why people don't like to give their cars up is the power of individual transport that isn't limited by how far you can petal and provides an direct non-stop route. The direct non-stop route is one heck of an time saver. Not to mention not being tied to transit schedules and ability to easily carry cargo.
You're really missing the point. Of course I didn't mean the effect would be literally the same in every instance. Of course I don't mean that it is the same as the government staffing your garage. It is obviously similar in the sense that we are actually discussing: that it forces more parking than the market can bear. It's not really relevant that minimum parking restrictions require less government revenue than the government building parking itself (undoubtedly true) because no one is advocating that the government build more parking.

If you really think that min. parking rules don't cause an overbuilding of parking then you just haven't done enough research on the topic. Yes there are many places where developers will go over the minimum but that is not universally true. There is a mountain of evidence that the rules lead to more parking than the market demands in commercial areas. Start here: http://www.uctc.net/papers/351.pdf

"The generous parking capacity required by planners often
goes unused° Studying office buildings in ten California
dries, Richard Willson (1995) found that the peak parking
demand averaged only 56 percent of capacity. Gruen
Associates (1986) found that peak parking demanda t nine
suburban office parks near Philadelphia and San Francisco
averaged only 47 percent of capacity, and that no office park
had a peak parking demand greater than 60 percent of
capacity.3 The Urban Land Institute (1982, 12) found that
the recommendepda rking requirements for shopping
centers provide a surplus of parking spaces for all but
nineteen hours a year, and leave at least half of all spaces
vacant for more than 40 percent of the time a shopping
center is open for busines"


I make no assumption that cars are a burden. Getting rid of minimum parking restrictions wouldn't get rid of cars. It would allow certain urban neighborhoods to get more dense so that people who don't want to have a car or want to drive less would have more options. Even in my dense city neighborhood with mostly street parking, there are tons of families with cars. The difference is that there are also people who don't have cars and are able to have convenient lives.

There will always be plenty of neighborhoods for people who don't want to deal with street parking to live in. Suburban areas removed from city cores will always have plenty of space for parking because most of the homes have driveways and garages. Getting rid of minimum parking rules won't turn those areas into Manhattan.

You seem to think that your personal preference of having cars is objectively true and you are more than happy to call upon the government to help force that preference down onto others.

And yes, that is all it is: a personal preference. So far you have tried to make the argument that your preference goes beyond a preference because it is necessary for public safety, yet utterly failed to provide any statistical evidence behind that claim.
 
Old 07-21-2014, 10:07 AM
 
3,695 posts, read 4,965,277 times
Reputation: 2069
Quote:
Originally Posted by stateofnature View Post
You're really missing the point. Of course I didn't mean the effect would be literally the same in every instance. Of course I don't mean that it is the same as the government staffing your garage. It is obviously similar in the sense that we are actually discussing: that it forces more parking than the market can bear. It's not really relevant that minimum parking restrictions require less government revenue than the government building parking itself (undoubtedly true) because no one is advocating that the government build more parking.

If you really think that min. parking rules don't cause an overbuilding of parking then you just haven't done enough research on the topic. Yes there are many places where developers will go over the minimum but that is not universally true. There is a mountain of evidence that the rules lead to more parking than the market demands in commercial areas. Start here: http://www.uctc.net/papers/351.pdf

"The generous parking capacity required by planners often
goes unused° Studying office buildings in ten California
dries, Richard Willson (1995) found that the peak parking
demand averaged only 56 percent of capacity. Gruen
Associates (1986) found that peak parking demanda t nine
suburban office parks near Philadelphia and San Francisco
averaged only 47 percent of capacity, and that no office park
had a peak parking demand greater than 60 percent of
capacity.3 The Urban Land Institute (1982, 12) found that
the recommendepda rking requirements for shopping
centers provide a surplus of parking spaces for all but
nineteen hours a year, and leave at least half of all spaces
vacant for more than 40 percent of the time a shopping
center is open for busines"


I make no assumption that cars are a burden. Getting rid of minimum parking restrictions wouldn't get rid of cars. It would allow certain urban neighborhoods to get more dense so that people who don't want to have a car or want to drive less would have more options. Even in my dense city neighborhood with mostly street parking, there are tons of families with cars. The difference is that there are also people who don't have cars and are able to have convenient lives.

There will always be plenty of neighborhoods for people who don't want to deal with street parking to live in. Suburban areas removed from city cores will always have plenty of space for parking because most of the homes have driveways and garages. Getting rid of minimum parking rules won't turn those areas into Manhattan.

You seem to think that your personal preference of having cars is objectively true and you are more than happy to call upon the government to help force that preference down onto others.

And yes, that is all it is: a personal preference. So far you have tried to make the argument that your preference goes beyond a preference because it is necessary for public safety, yet utterly failed to provide any statistical evidence behind that claim.
You are talking about office parks. They are usually built with at least one space per employee plus a few for visitors. A lay-off or the company overbuilding betting on growth will cause the lot to not be at capacity. You might have built that office park in 1976 when you had more employees. Then you laid off the typing pool and maybe hired 1-3 more accountants or lawyers.

With office buildings the type of work being done will affect the amount of parking used up. Some things will require clients be present and other things like say an accountant or real estate office might not need much space.

I have worked at an place that barely had enough parking(technically it didn’t as my car was parked on an dirt hill and I was dodging trucks taking ingredients in and product out). I had to be at work at 4a.m.. While transit was present I didn’t exactly feel safe walking about 3 blocks in a rough area at night at the start of work and the bus would be running on the half hour then (I could drive that distance in ten mins). So yeah parking is important.

As for retail that is often sized for peak period not for average. Malls for instance had parking lots sized for the Christmas rush and recommended parking requirements are not the same as min. parking. It goes beyond my preference for the car. The automobile has been invented. Humanity has been freed of reliance on transit schedules and slow non-direct transit. I don’t think any employer would build an building without enough parking for it’s employees in most instances. The only place you really could get away with it would be downtown. The building I used to work for now lies empty and it is hard to sell or re-purpose a building without parking.
 
Old 07-21-2014, 12:20 PM
 
2,081 posts, read 3,556,059 times
Reputation: 2375
Quote:
Originally Posted by chirack View Post
You are talking about office parks. They are usually built with at least one space per employee plus a few for visitors. A lay-off or the company overbuilding betting on growth will cause the lot to not be at capacity. You might have built that office park in 1976 when you had more employees. Then you laid off the typing pool and maybe hired 1-3 more accountants or lawyers.

With office buildings the type of work being done will affect the amount of parking used up. Some things will require clients be present and other things like say an accountant or real estate office might not need much space.

I have worked at an place that barely had enough parking(technically it didn’t as my car was parked on an dirt hill and I was dodging trucks taking ingredients in and product out). I had to be at work at 4a.m.. While transit was present I didn’t exactly feel safe walking about 3 blocks in a rough area at night at the start of work and the bus would be running on the half hour then (I could drive that distance in ten mins). So yeah parking is important.

As for retail that is often sized for peak period not for average. Malls for instance had parking lots sized for the Christmas rush and recommended parking requirements are not the same as min. parking. It goes beyond my preference for the car. The automobile has been invented. Humanity has been freed of reliance on transit schedules and slow non-direct transit. I don’t think any employer would build an building without enough parking for it’s employees in most instances. The only place you really could get away with it would be downtown. The building I used to work for now lies empty and it is hard to sell or re-purpose a building without parking.
So you think the massive surplus of parking at office parks is driven by layoffs and downsizing alone? You're just not looking at the evidence. You are believing what you want to believe rather than what is real. Look at the study I quoted again: "no office park had a peak parking demand greater than 60 percent of capacity." It wasn't just at companies that downsized.

But even if you are right, then what is the harm in lifting the minimum parking requirements? If you're right that "I don’t think any employer would build an building without enough parking for it’s employees in most instances" then no harm is done. The employer will just provide the parking anyway. My point is that the employer is much more likely to know the right minimum amount of parking needed than the government. Space will be more efficiently used.
 
Old 07-21-2014, 12:35 PM
 
Location: Vallejo
21,669 posts, read 24,806,479 times
Reputation: 18895
Quote:
Originally Posted by jade408 View Post
Here are some rough costs to build a parking spot. I imagine in Chicago, new buildings require below grade parking at roughly $30-40k per space. And yes developers pass that cost on to residents. Parking also reduces profitability. Developers could build more units with the space reserved for parking.

Construction Costs for Parking Stalls | Square Feet Blog Commercial Real Estate Blog
Actually, it often increases profitability.

It's been a long time since I've been in apartment that just gave you free parking. In Seattle where the cost was probably close to that $30-40k space for the underground garage, the cost of parking was indeed passed on to the renter. If you wanted a spot, it cost you a cool $275/mo.

The garage was unsuitable for occupancy. Legally, I very much doubt it could have been finished and had apartments added that could have been rented. Even if they legally could, there wouldn't be much demand. I mean, get the price low enough and people will live anywhere.

Before that, a reserved parking spot in a suburban apartment complex in Sacramento was $35/mo. They did have some unreserved/guest parking but that always filled up so you had to park outside the complex and walk back in which was annoying and one of the main reasons we did not renew the lease at that place since in the nine months we were there, we did not make it through the waiting list to get a paid spot.
 
Old 07-21-2014, 12:36 PM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,316 posts, read 120,244,119 times
Reputation: 35920
Quote:
Originally Posted by stateofnature View Post
So you think the massive surplus of parking at office parks is driven by layoffs and downsizing alone? You're just not looking at the evidence. You are believing what you want to believe rather than what is real. Look at the study I quoted again: "no office park had a peak parking demand greater than 60 percent of capacity." It wasn't just at companies that downsized.

But even if you are right, then what is the harm in lifting the minimum parking requirements? If you're right that "I don’t think any employer would build an building without enough parking for it’s employees in most instances" then no harm is done. The employer will just provide the parking anyway. My point is that the employer is much more likely to know the right minimum amount of parking needed than the government. Space will be more efficiently used.
Where is the employer going to provide the parking if no land remains on which to provide it?
 
Old 07-21-2014, 12:43 PM
 
Location: Vallejo
21,669 posts, read 24,806,479 times
Reputation: 18895
Quote:
Originally Posted by chirack View Post
You are talking about office parks. They are usually built with at least one space per employee plus a few for visitors. A lay-off or the company overbuilding betting on growth will cause the lot to not be at capacity. You might have built that office park in 1976 when you had more employees. Then you laid off the typing pool and maybe hired 1-3 more accountants or lawyers.

With office buildings the type of work being done will affect the amount of parking used up. Some things will require clients be present and other things like say an accountant or real estate office might not need much space.

I have worked at an place that barely had enough parking(technically it didn’t as my car was parked on an dirt hill and I was dodging trucks taking ingredients in and product out). I had to be at work at 4a.m.. While transit was present I didn’t exactly feel safe walking about 3 blocks in a rough area at night at the start of work and the bus would be running on the half hour then (I could drive that distance in ten mins). So yeah parking is important.

As for retail that is often sized for peak period not for average. Malls for instance had parking lots sized for the Christmas rush and recommended parking requirements are not the same as min. parking. It goes beyond my preference for the car. The automobile has been invented. Humanity has been freed of reliance on transit schedules and slow non-direct transit. I don’t think any employer would build an building without enough parking for it’s employees in most instances. The only place you really could get away with it would be downtown. The building I used to work for now lies empty and it is hard to sell or re-purpose a building without parking.
And the opposite also happens.

Employees per square feet has generally increased, especially as a formerly prestige office park ages and loses its prestige. Class B offices invariably have more people working in the same amount of space than Class A offices, although the trend of increased employees per square foot holds true for both. In Sacramento especially the University Commons area (if you're familiar) is fully occupied (good location) but has lost some prestige. Parking can be very difficult. They've added a couple of additional parking lots which is really the only place you can park. It was built as Class A, but now is sort of Class A-/B+. A lot of medical offices have also opened up there who have much higher visitor traffic than a standard office. There may have been more than sufficient parking in the '70s when they were built because of less employees per square foot and no medical offices.
 
Old 07-21-2014, 12:50 PM
 
Location: Vallejo
21,669 posts, read 24,806,479 times
Reputation: 18895
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana View Post
Where is the employer going to provide the parking if no land remains on which to provide it?
Replacing surface parking with expensive parking garages. Happens a lot here, moreso in the Bay Area, where land is worth so much. It's still an issue, especially if you've got a business in the area that just won't provide adequate parking and then everyone around them has to either provide so much extra parking that it's not an issue (what the deadbeat is counting on) or play parking police. Eventually an area tips and goes from free parking to paid parking which tends to at least take care of the parking police problem since the parking becomes a profit generator rather than a overhead cost that is absorbed. I've never had a parking garage in SF downtown with signs "parking for XYZ ABC Street tenants only." They don't care. They'll take your $40. The parking facilities are usually outsourced anyway so even the ones that fill up routinely the building management isn't in a position to try and restrict access and the operator doesn't care.
 
Old 07-21-2014, 12:57 PM
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Location: Western Massachusetts
46,009 posts, read 53,194,339 times
Reputation: 15174
Quote:
Originally Posted by Malloric View Post
Actually, it often increases profitability.

It's been a long time since I've been in apartment that just gave you free parking. In Seattle where the cost was probably close to that $30-40k space for the underground garage, the cost of parking was indeed passed on to the renter. If you wanted a spot, it cost you a cool $275/mo.
I could get an off street parking spot if I paid, and for much less for $275 / month. But I don't feel like paying.
 
Old 07-21-2014, 02:17 PM
 
Location: Vallejo
21,669 posts, read 24,806,479 times
Reputation: 18895
Quote:
Originally Posted by nei View Post
I could get an off street parking spot if I paid, and for much less for $275 / month. But I don't feel like paying.
Yes, that's what I did.

I paid $125/mo a few blocks over for parking in a surface lot until I sold my car. That was in Belltown. No such thing as street parking. It's all metered. Surrounding areas are all 2-hour or permit. It might be a mile or more to the nearest free street parking for longer than two hours.
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