UNDERSTANDING THE PARKING NEEDS OF YOUR BUSINESS

Parking is one of the critical criteria often overlooked by businesses when choosing their physical office space locations. The identification of the primary and secondary modes of transportation utilized by business owners and their employees, visitors, clientele, vendors, and customers is essential for determining the parking modalities needed when occupying the targeted location and in the longer-term could significantly affect the viability of their businesses

Let’s review this case study as an example as to how geographical location by itself can determine more than just access to a business. The owners of a Chicago downtown medical practice are negotiating a lease renewal for their medical office space and also have decided to open a new 24-hour emergency clinic in a suburban development some thirty-five miles away in DuPage County. In order to better define their parking needs, they will have to attempt to identify the varying vehicular uses of all of the above listed users of their business—now in two locations. At the downtown property some of the owners and employees drive to work either every day or only on certain days, while most of the employees for both the first and second shifts use public transportation i.e., trains, buses, and subways. A very low percentage may ride a motorcycle, bicycle, take a taxi, and/or walk. Most patients, vendors, sales people, and off-the-street visitors use their automobiles for office visits. On the other hand, the new suburban location has limited hours of bus service with the closest bus stop located a mile from the proposed clinic’s site. Ownership has made the assumption that almost every employee, visitor, client, vendor, and patient will be driving an automobile to get to their proposed suburban medical clinic.

Five years ago when the four doctors/owners opened their downtown medical practice in Chicago, the building owner’s leasing broker offered them an option to rent up to 6 random spaces on a monthly contract “license” basis in the parking garage—also owned by the same landlord—across the street subject to current market rates. However, the option guaranteeing parking availability for the entire five year term of the lease for the parking spaces had to be exercised by the commencement date of their lease. Visitors to their business could also park in that same facility on a space-when-available basis that at the time of negotiating the lease for their office space appeared to have many vacant parking spaces. Since there were only four partners, they decided to only commit to four monthly parking spaces. However during these past five years, they had added two more physician partners who constantly complained that they could not get monthly parking across the street and had to park their cars in a garage four blocks away. If only the original doctors/owners of the medical practice had the foresight to take that option for the other two spaces when they had the opportunity, then they would have been able to accommodate all six of the partners' monthly parking needs. Also during the more inclement icy and snowy winter months, the complaints made about unavailable parking closer-to-the-office by their management-level employees were also becoming a concern as increasing lateness and absenteeism became more frequent.

There is continual turnover of the female medical support staff working the evening shift because they could not find unoccupied parking spaces in the garage across the street—their second shift starts at 3 PM and all of the facility’s parking spaces are still occupied with cars from mostly daytime working parkers. Many of the women have safety concerns leaving late at night who desire the security of getting to their automobiles quickly and as close to the medical office as possible. Knowing that in the past year two second-shift female employees of tenants in their office building had been accosted when leaving work, only added to their perceived fears and to the employees’ dissatisfaction that management was not being proactive in solving the problem by providing a convenient and safe place to park their vehicles.

In addition, patients are complaining about the very expensive one and two hour parking rates and the inability to find cheaper street parking and/or an open parking space near the medical office practice. Cancellations of appointments are on the rise and a growing number of frustrated patients are starting to change physicians. The doctors/owners attempted to provide validated parking for their patients, but the parking operator informed them that the garage was so busy that visitor parking was still very limited and only available on a first-come basis. Next year, they were advised, the facility would probably only be operated during the daytime hours for monthly contracted parkers. Now the physicians had to figure out where in the immediate neighborhood they were going to direct their patients and visitors to park.

The leasing broker for the new suburban medical clinic advised ownership that county and city zoning statutes for medical practices require 5 parking spaces for every 1,000 square feet of clinic space i.e., there will be 35 spaces provided for their 7,000 square foot business. The doctors/owners are in a dilemma because they need 25 spaces for themselves and their daytime employees and are seriously concerned that an additional 25 parking spaces may be needed for patients and other users during their busier times of the day. Their proposed site is part of a retail strip mall that has no additional parking spaces available since the developer only provided for enough parking spaces per local zoning and building codes—4 spaces per 1,000 square feet of retail space. The doctors/owners really want to rent this space for their new medical clinic—staff and equipment had already been secured—and monetary pressures forced them to close their eyes to the problem. They decided that their employees and patients would just have to use some of the other retail tenants’ storefront parking spaces when their designated spaces are occupied. They rationalized that there did not appear to be a way that the property management company would be able to identify whose cars belong to whom—or so they assumed.

In this real life example, we can immediately grasp how important the intricate world of parking becomes to business owners. Their lack of understanding the complexities and the short-term and longer-term needs for adequate parking resources could ultimately cause their businesses to frustrate and lose customers, employees, revenues, incur more overhead expenses, limit growth and expansion, and/or ultimately force the closure of the business at that location—initiating the hunting for new available real estate space, dealing again with another landlord’s leasing broker, and incurring all of the costs, hassles and disruptions of a major office move.

If you are renewing your office space and/or looking for new lease space, it behooves you to contact a professional parking consultant to assist you with assessing your business’s parking needs and to provide guidance and direction in securing the appropriate parking model for your establishment. Likewise, you may also want to hire your own leasing broker to handle what he or she is trained to do by finding the ideal property location based upon your business’s projected growth and by negotiating as your agent the new office lease or its renewal; and thereby, you will  have an experienced real estate professional focusing upon your company’s present and future functional needs and financial interests with leasing decisions not primarily driven by the dictates of the landlord and/or his own broker.

Allan Lombardo

www.Consultant2Biz.com

allanlombardo@gmail.com