Whether you are in the parking business or operate a business that depends on parking, market-based parking rates and their trends help you make critical decisions that impact your revenue and expenses, either directly in the case of parking owners and operators, or indirectly in the case of businesses that depend on parking.
With Parking Property Advisors’ 2017 Midwest Parking Markets Report, our goal is to provide parking stakeholders with information on parking rates and trends in 10 of the largest Midwest Central Business Districts: Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville and St. Louis.
In developing the Midwest Parking Markets Report, PPA gathered data from more than 240 parking garages and lots representing a capacity of roughly 150,000 parking spaces.
The results?
Average Hourly Rates:
Chicago: $22.46
Minneapolis: $11.27
Cleveland: $8.81
Detroit: $8.21
Indianapolis: $6.07
Columbus: $4.46
Kansas City: $3.52
St. Louis: $3.37
Cincinnati: $3.09
Louisville: $2.75
And for Average Daily Rates:
Chicago: $41.52
Minneapolis: $22.28
Indianapolis: $18
Detroit: $16.57
Louisville: $14.62
St. Louis: $13.24
Cincinnati: $12.43
Kansas City: $12.41
Cleveland: $11.31
Columbus: $10.20
And then for Average Monthly Unreserved Rates:
Chicago: $378
Minneapolis: $251
Detroit: $184
Cleveland: $181
Cincinnati: $149
Indianapolis: $138
Columbus: $119
Louisville: $98
St. Louis: $97
Kansas City: $84
And finally, for Average Monthly Reserved Rates:
Chicago: $546
Minneapolis: $306
Cleveland: $237
Detroit: $220
Cincinnati: $193
Columbus: $170
Indianapolis: $170
St. Louis: $144
Kansas City: $125
Louisville: $114
Overall, Chicago has the highest average parking rates of the 10 cities in the survey. The lowest rates are in Kansas City, Louisville, and St. Louis. Average hourly rates range from $2.75 in Louisville to $22.46 in Chicago. For daily rates, Columbus has the lowest average at approximately $10 per day; in contrast, Chicago has the highest average daily rate at more than $41 per day.
For average monthly rates, Kansas City has the lowest unreserved rates with averages of $84 and Louisville has the lowest monthly reserved rates with an average of $114. By contrast, for the Chicago CBD, the average monthly unreserved rate is $378 and the average reserved monthly rate is $546.
Future Parking Trends
Prospects for ever-increasing parking rates are anticipated for all of the studied Midwest CBDs due to:
1.Continued overall population growth in the urban core (CBD) areas.
2.Office Densification. Many companies recognize rent is the second highest operating cost after payroll and are electing to house more employees into less space for cost savings. This results in greater parking needs for CBD office properties.
3.Continued strong urban development patterns. Many new residential projects and in-fill hotels are occurring in these CBD’s. In addition, many new CBD projects are being constructed on former vacant parking lots, further reducing the existing parking inventory.
4.Many new CBD development projects are being constructed with minimal parking requirements as many zoning authorities and developers are desirous of less parking associated with new development. The result is many new developments inherently have inadequate parking.
Note: PPA is indebted to numerous appraisal firms for research assistance, Parkopedia and to PPA’s external research consultant, Alexa Cole.
Parking Property Advisors, LLC is a national parking consulting firm. PPA performs valuation consulting, rent studies, capitalization rate research, disposition consulting, functional design studies and property tax appeals. PPA clients include owners, investors, lenders, operators, law firms, municipalities and parking consulting partners.