Management-Marketing-Leasing Today – December 2006
New micro cars suggest revisiting parking ratios
By: Peter D. Morris SCSM, SCMD Vice President, Retail North America Real Estate Management Services Colliers International 1175 Douglas Street, Stuite 1110 Victoria, BC V8W 2E1 CANADA Phone: (250) 414-8383 Fax: (250) 382-3564 Email: Peter.Morris@colliers.com
New ordinances in Duncan, BC, Canada accommodate drivers of micro cars suggesting new opportunities for shopping center owners.
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icro cars are creating new parking opportunities for cities and shopping centers. A micro car is an ultra-subcompact car such a Mercedes Smart car, a two-seater that measures just over eight feet long and five feet wide. It is due for introduction in the US in 2007 after being successfully launched in Canada in 2005. These types of mini-cars have been part of the landscape in Europe and other parts of the world for decades and parking ratio requirements there have reflected that reality. Municipalities in Canada are now leading the way in the creation of “micro stalls” because most current on-street parking regulations do not address nose-in (90 0 ) parking in a stall designed for parallel parking. The issue arose as micro-car drivers created their own awkward parking space on streets by parking nose in right next to where larger cars are parallel parked. One of the first cities to create “micro stalls” is Duncan, BC in Canada. The city created twelve micro parallel parking stalls in the downtown core at the ends of city blocks that could not accommodate a regular 22-foot stall length. Owners of motorcycles and scooters can use the stalls as well as owners of micro cars.
Obviously, the acknowledged trend to ultra small cars provides an opportunity for shopping center owners (if supported by anchors and municipal codes) to re-stripe their parking spaces reconfigured for new designated micro-car stalls, thus increasing parking availability. In turn and depending on the number of stalls that can be added, the shopping center owner may be able to increase their rentable space density as a result. Naturally, the property owner must first convince the municipality to adopt a new micro stall classification using the smaller dimensions. For example, if the Duncan downtown area were a shopping center, the twelve newly-formed “found’ parking stalls could translate into 2,400 square feet of additional leasable area on the same land area given the typical North American parking ratio of 5 parking spaces per 1,000 square feet. While this example is not significant, it demonstrates the possibilities beyond energy savings resulting from the introduction of this new class of vehicle in North America.
Peter Morris SCSM, SCMD , as vice president of North America retail for Colliers International, has created a program for his company’s clients to introduce micro stalls to their properties as well as other initiatives to increase parking density, which allows owners to intensify their leasable area on the same land mass where the biggest obstacle is parking ratio requirements.