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June 2013

Parking spaces

Two Boston parking spaces sold for $ 560,000

June 15, 2013 ?? – While recent parking tickets costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in Boston and San Francisco shocked readers this week, the volatile price of parking, especially residential parking, reflects the “volatile” world of urban real estate, according to real estate experts. .

The Internal Revenue Service auctioned off two residential parking spaces in Boston on Thursday for $ 560,000, and an 8-by-12-foot parking space in San Francisco’s trendy South Beach neighborhood sold for 82,000. $ the week before, as the San Francisco Chronicle first reported.

“When we look at residential versus commercial parking, the overall trends are similar. But with residential parking, it’s specific to that individual block, and it’s much more variable,” said James Cook, US Director from research to real estate. Colliers International service company. “It’s also more volatile.”

It was obvious Thursday in Boston, when crowds of people gathered in the rain in the upscale Back Bay neighborhood. The IRS auctioned off two parking spaces it had seized from a man with nearly $ 600,000 in back taxes. He bought the spaces for $ 50,000 in 1993, the Boston Globe reported. Auctions started at $ 42,000.

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At first glance, the two parking spots can’t seem to fetch half a million dollars. They are located in what looks like an alley, behind two more parking spaces. But those two parking spots are behind Commonwealth Avenue, where a street spot sold for over $ 300,000 in 2009.

The winner, Lisa Blumenthal, already has three parking spots with her home on Commonwealth Avenue, a few blocks from the finish line of the Boston Marathon. But she told the Boston Globe that more space would allow guests and workers to park.

Blumenthal declined to comment on ABC News.

“It was a little hotter than I expected,” Blumenthal told The Globe.

Unlike Blumenthal’s new property, the Townsend Street parking spot in San Francisco that sold for $ 82,000 is in a gated parking lot attached to a condominium near the AT&T San Francisco Giant baseball stadium.

When Cook saw the headlines about parking prices, he was shocked at first, and then when he found out where the parking spaces were, they “made more sense.”

“It’s a really simple economy – the laws of supply and demand. In the United States, the world of parking, like all real estate, is a tale of two worlds.”

The two worlds Cook, who lives in rural Indiana, refers to are the major urban areas of the country, “then the rest of the United States.”

“There is no shortage of parking spaces in the rest of the nation,” Cook said. “In Indiana, I never pay for parking. It’s all about supply and demand.”

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“The Back Bay neighborhood is super rich, hip, expensive and one of the hardest places to find a parking space in North America,” he said.

Cook said leasing the parking space would provide a potentially stable source of income for the new owner, or that she could always resell the space.

“Either way, she’ll get the value if she sells it. There’s no loss of money for her,” said Cook, who added that wealthy homeowners in the area could most likely afford the places. .

The median home value for Back Bay in Boston, according to the Zillow Home Value Index, is $ 736,300, up 17.8% year-over-year and 2.3% from March to April 2013.

In South Beach in San Francisco, it stands at $ 931,200, up 27.8% year-over-year and 1% month-over-month from March to April.

“These are the coolest, trendiest places to live. The general trend is that leading US urban markets have led the real estate recovery. There has been a real bifurcation,” he said.

Retail real estate sales and rental prices in New York and San Francisco are “astronomical,” Cook said.

“You would think there has never been a recession. In the rest of the United States, there is an ongoing recovery,” he said.

Colliers International published a list of the most expensive central business districts for parking in October. They studied dozens of shopping areas and found that New York, Boston, and San Francisco topped the median rates for unreserved monthly parking spots. In other words, they are non-designated parking spaces such as parking garages without specific and designated locations.

Here is the Necklaces list of the 17 best US cities according to median monthly rates:

1. New York, NY – Midtown: $ 562

2. New York, NY – Downtown $ 533

3. Boston, Massachusetts: $ 405

4. San Francisco, California: $ 375

5. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: $ 313.25

6. Chicago, Illinois: $ 289

7. Seattle, Washington: $ 285

8. Washington, DC $ 270

9. Honolulu, Hawaii: $ 230

10. Los Angeles, California: $ 220.93

11. Oakland, California: $ 195

12. Bellevue, Washington: $ 195

13. Hartford, Connecticut: $ 189.74

14. Portland, Oregon: $ 185

15. Denver, Colorado: $ 180

16. San Diego, California: $ 175

17. Minneapolis, Minnesota: $ 175

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Parking spaces

Cleveland Hopkins has fewer public parking spaces than many other mid-sized airports

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A parking sign at the Cleveland Hopkins International Airport short-term garage recently indicates that the garage is nearly full. Workers were installing a “smart parking” technology system that will direct drivers to open spaces and allow the garage to fill more easily.

(Peggy Turbett, Plain Dealer file)

Cleveland, Ohio — Cleveland Hopkins International Airport offers travelers fewer public parking spaces than most other medium-sized airports in the country. But Hopkins officials stressed last week that there were more than enough parking spaces for even the busiest times.

They say their peak demand is 5,500 to 590 spaces below the 6,090 they will have after tearing down the long-term parking lot and replacing it with surface land that has less than half the spaces. This project is expected to start in July and end in November.

The demolition of the long-term parking garage is part of a $24 million plan to improve airport parking that also includes the eventual addition of two floors – and an undetermined number of spaces – to the short-term parking garage. duration. Long-term parking is $10 per day, while short-term parking is $14.

Ricky Smith, who as director of port control oversees the airport, declined to be interviewed for this story. In a statement, Smith defended the long-term garage razing, saying, “This parking lot is 50 years old and past its useful life.”

“Recent media reports have expressed concern about whether there will be enough parking spaces for our customers,” he added. “We can assure our traveling public that there will be ample parking available” at Hopkins.

Hopkins currently has about 7,400 public parking spaces – or about 1.7 per 1,000 original passengers in 2011. This is lower than the average number of spaces at other similarly sized airports of 8,900 spaces. parking – or 2.6 per 1,000 original passengers, according to a 2012 Parking Survey by the Airports Council International-North America and the International Parking Institute.

The ratio of parking spaces per 1,000 originating passengers is an industry benchmark because it allows airports of all sizes to be compared.

The groups surveyed 125 of the country’s airports, presenting aggregate figures for small, medium and large airports. The researchers noted that the figures reflected the “number of parking spaces provided rather than the number required at each airport”.

Experts say the number of parking spaces needed varies with each airport’s individual situation – and changes over time.

But, in general, smaller airports need more parking spaces per 1,000 travelers because they are more likely to have a higher share of originating passengers leaving their cars. Larger airports tend to have more connecting passengers and more off-site private parking for people driving to the airport.

“An airport must be ready to accommodate the number of peak customers,” said Kristie VanAuken, spokesperson for the Akron-Canton Airportwhich offers 4,013 public parking spaces and is currently adding 350 spaces to its economy fleet to keep up with the rapid growth in passenger numbers over the past few years.

“It’s kind of like Christmas in church,” VanAuken said. “You go to church and you have a lot of pews there. It’s usually full at Christmas and Easter, isn’t it?

“And it’s a bit like that for us too,” she added. “There are peak travel seasons and peak days during the week. We were able to keep up. But we were pretty full where we were, I would say, 95% across all batches. When you get to that you know you need to add a few more spots.”

While the number of passengers originating from Akron-Canton has increased, increasing the need for more parking spaces, at Hopkins those numbers have declined, as they have done at the majority of mid-sized airports in recent years. .

The number of passengers originating from Hopkins fell by 1.2 million, or nearly 22%, from 2001 to 2011, according to figures from the Federal Aviation Administration. Experts say it makes sense that parking demand has also fallen.

Yet Cleveland has far fewer public spaces than Pittsburgh International (13,206 public parking spaces), Port Columbus International Airport (13,088 places), and Indianapolis International Airport (13,850). All three airports saw fewer originating passengers than Cleveland in 2011, the latest figures for the year were available, according to FAA records.

Carlo Bertolini, spokesman for Indianapolis International Airport, acknowledged that the airport has too many parking spaces for current needs. But he added that the airport, which opened in 2008, was built to meet needs 30 years or more from now.

The fact that the Indianapolis airport opened just as the recession hit “definitely had an effect as well,” Bertolini said. “We’re certainly not full in general. We also have 40 gates, and those aren’t full either.”

Seating capacity at Indianapolis was about 18,000, but airport officials recently eliminated about 4,000 seats by consolidating two lots.

“We are built for growth,” added Bertolini. “If you look at the land, it doesn’t look vacant. It’s just that there’s a lot of built-in growth capacity.”

Others say the right amount of extra capacity can be a positive, translating into greater choice and convenience for customers. It’s easier to find a seat when you’re rushing to catch a flight, and there’s more choice in terms of price.

“We like to give our travelers options,” said Angie Tabor, communications manager for Port Columbus International Airport. “Our parking lot fills up twice a week. We opened the green [economy] a lot just a few years ago.

“Green parking is only $4 a day and we challenge anyone to find cheaper parking in the State of Ohio.”

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