Thursday, July 12, 2007

Feeling the Pain of Parking

I posted a few weeks ago about what I felt like was a natural disaster when it came to parking in San Francisco. People are feeling the pain, and are trying to make those who have adjusted pay for their pain. A post on Metro Rider in LA, discusses how LA just hasn't felt the pain because they don't pay the true cost of parking. It's just paid for through back channel ways. If the free market was really able to work, those spaces would cost an awful lot. But they would be provided by the market. Perhaps they would cost as much as the one's in New York City, which according to a New York Times article are going for about $225,000. Wow

For developers in New York, parking is the highest and best use for below-grade space and fetches about the same price per square foot as actual living space, which costs much more to develop. According to Miller Samuel, the average parking space costs $165,019, or $1,100 per square foot, close to the average apartment price of $1,107 per square foot. Those are averages, of course. A $200,000 parking space is about $1,333 per square foot.

1 comment:

M1EK said...

Important distinction: The $250,000 is for a parking space only you can use. You can of course get a parking space for a lot less than that per-day; even a contract-parking spot (maybe not the same exact spot each day, but a guaranteed spot in the garage).

Try more like $25-$75/day depending. Which is still obviously steep enough to discourage frivolous driving. No need to scare people with $250K stories.