Parking space is very important especially when looking for a good place to locate your office. The most common areas are those across the building that are available to all visitors, tenants and their clients as well as customers for the business to operate normally. A good parking facility whether a garage structure or any other structure that offers parking services is part of the common areas.
Most of the commercial leases have a clause that addresses parking issues. Each office buildings normally use a certain ratio of a certain number of parking spaces per 1000 square feet of the area rented. Remember that when negotiating for your office lease, make sure you have adequate parking. For the landlords, ensure that when the building is completed, it have normal parking spaces to allow the building to be utilised for its use.
Well, today as offices become more and more densely populated with corporate space users, a lot of buildings are finding more and more parking capacity especially in well-occupied buildings. In a place where public transportation is not used mostly, employees need more spaces to park their cars.
The cost of parking is an issue a Landlord is ready to negotiate on. Depending on your bargaining power, everything ranging from parking allocation, designation of parking spaces as well as the cost of reserved spaces are negotiable items.
The cost of parking for your employees can be a counting factor in the total cost of occupancy. An example is in the down town markets where the cost of parking is more expensive; therefore, you can extra dollars to your annual lease costs. On the other hand, the parking cost in suburban markets is in most cases less expensive depending on the market and parking accommodations.
The parking structure to protect your employees may come with an added cost but with effective negotiations, these costs can be mitigated.
Test the Parking Garage/Facility
Much consideration is put into place whenever a company is considering having their office space. The task entails evaluating the features of the building and specifically spaces but never forget to evaluate the parking facilities. Well, if you are used to parking in the visitor’s parking when touring major buildings, then this will not give you the same experience as compared to when you are a tenant in the building. The visitor’s parking should be convenient for all the customers but if it turns out that getting from your office premises to your car takes an extra 5 to 10 minutes, then there are options that need to be considered in your evaluation.
Some owners of different building have a history of over-subscribing their parking allocations. Similarly, they fail to enforce restrictions to tenants who are exceeding their allocations. In case you find that you have to spend more than 10 minutes searching for a parking space available, this should be a red flag. A well organised and thorough assessment of the parking facilities can help do away with issues that may occur when you are committed to a lease term of 5 to 10 years.
Well, the best thing you need is a great office with a good parking. Your broker should be able to negotiate a thorough parking provision and inform you of the perceived parking issues that are present in a particular building.
