Giving new life to deserted parking garages – cities’ declining dependence on cars and commutes may point to a novel solution for the lack of affordable housing in cities.
While there are clearly no easy answers to an issue that seems destined to become even worse in the not-too-distant future, one solution may be found in yet another pre-pandemic issue: a rapidly declining demand for parking space in the heart of America’s cities. Thanks in large part to a significant rise in the number of workers living within walking or biking distance to their jobs and a marked increase in the use of ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft, garages and parking lots located in central business districts (CBDs) were seeing a significant drop-off in their business long before the pandemic made working from home a necessity.
Even today, with life getting somewhat back to normal, this trend seems unlikely to change as numerous employers turn to flexible work schedules in response to the productivity their employees exhibited while working remotely throughout the pandemic. That means fewer people driving into CBDs on a daily basis and, in turn, less demand for parking in downtown garages. Remote work has also had a devastating effect on the restaurants, dry cleaners, and other small businesses which depend on those workers to keep their operations afloat. As these businesses have been forced to cut back on staffing or close altogether, the garages which provided regular parking for their customers and employees have again been impacted negatively.
Add to this the increased emphasis the Biden administration – and many cities around the country – have placed on climate action and the need to limit automobile use, and a scenario emerges that is making an already difficult situation for garage operators nearly impossible. Many operators are being forced to confront the fact that their businesses may never rebound to the levels they enjoyed just five short years ago. Certainly, that prospect is at the heart of many operators, such as one of Washington, D.C.’s largest parking firms, which made the decision to declare bankruptcy.
Some operators have been fortunate enough to own lots or garages that sit on prime parcels of center-city land. For them, selling their property might represent a viable option, although with demand for office and adjacent retail space declining, this is not as profitable a solution as it was prior to COVID-19. In 2016, for example, more than 200 parking lots in the U.S. were sold for redevelopment – more than double the number of lots sold from 2006 through 2014.