The Numbers – When the Market ‘Plateaus’
March, 2020
One of the truisms in our industry is that the real estate market invariably validates parking — that is, the state of Parking Demand. The ability to park any number of vehicles, enabling a commercial property or venue or an institution to open its doors, makes the parking garage a cornerstone of the real estate market — period. This talk provides a multi-year overview of the parking garage construction market in that context.
But when the garage construction market ‘plateaus’, how can we understand that? How much of that is change which will stay with us, and how much is just gritty detail in a larger multi-year cycle that returns to validate the industry all over again? In fact, we have new conditions — which, while hardly pointing to dire straits, also contain new variables.
We're watching the market in terms of activity in parking garage construction in larger demographic conditions of growing parking demand — measured by private vehicle use — as well as an increase in non-vehicle dependent households (they don’t rely on a vehicle as the primary means of mobility). Both are growing, very often in the same urban space. Something has to give (right?) While we may not know the exact answer to the question — if for no other reason than that it’s part of long-term, multi-faceted trends — we have indications of what is emerging.
And how does street level activity inform the analysis? That is, what do new garage projects themselves reveal about market behavior? Some important examples are reviewed to show emerging conditions in a crowded urban space. Over-interpretation, or misinterpretation, of the numbers is as bad as not having any data at all: you miss the mark as to what is coming up. Understanding what we know is as important as identifying questions for which answers have yet to emerge.
What does a Market ‘Plateau’ Mean? Find out in this talk. Join Dale at PIE 2020, Wednesday March 25 at 8 AM.
Dale Denda is the co-founder of the Parking Market Research Company. He can be reached at ddenda@parkingresearch.com
