The parking industry is changing quickly through advanced technology, data-driven solutions, and AI-powered predictive pricing models. In response to these changes, real estate owners often engage parking advisors or consultants to provide recommendations for improving parking operations or bringing technology to their real estate portfolio.
In this article, we’ll offer an overview of the parking consulting process and some of the most common consulting services. Our goal is to help you understand when and why to hire a parking consultant, or whether it’s necessary at all. We’ll dive into typical consulting costs, review how to structure an RFP, and equip you with data and insight on what to expect from the services that consultants and advisors typically offer. We’ll also explore how our team can help with transaction advising, market data analysis, revenue forecasting, and due diligence.
Generally, parking consultants and advisors are paid to help evaluate a facility’s current performance, estimate future potential, and identify areas for improvement. Depending on the specific consultant and scope of work, their support can shift between an expert 3rd-party advisor for strategic decisions to a more hands-on role with operational issues or site work. Some will act as the asset manager, hiring the parking operator outright and monitoring month-over-month performance.
Common parking consulting services include:
Ultimately, a consultant’s role is to clarify areas of uncertainty and help define next steps, potential outcomes, and possible risks.
Parking consultants are often the first call when property owners need help defining next steps for managing, improving, or developing their assets. Below are common examples of when parking advisors are sought:
These large-scale projects (particularly as part of a bigger development initiative) almost always require experts in logistics planning, regulatory requirements, zoning, and engineering management. Parking advisors are one piece of the puzzle, working with a real estate owner to evaluate technology solutions and parking operators.
Consulting prices can add up quickly without a clear understanding of costs and the associated deliverables. We took a closer look at the average hourly and project costs for parking consultants to show what you might expect to pay for standard services. Here’s what we found:
For certain facility types, there may be specific regulations that make these consulting costs inevitable. In other cases, consulting costs can be avoided entirely. For the average property owner, determining whether you should hire a parking consultant largely depends on your goals and facility type.
Our team at AirGarage provides free parking advising and consulting services and has helped advise real estate owners across the country on parking asset transactions. While there are truly "no strings attached" for our services, we hope to use these engagements as an opportunity to earn your business and operate your facility after the fact. We partner with real estate developers, owners, and operators throughout the lifecycle of the new build or transaction.
Like any consultant, parking advisers typically bill you for a set of deliverables and not for outcomes or implementation. We have often seen cases where consultants recommend expensive implementations of outdated technology that are more profitable for the consultant.
One unique benefit to working with AirGarage for parking advising and diligence is that we already partner with hundreds of facilities and can provide demand and revenue benchmarks to set real estate owner's expectations in specific markets, even with local regulations and conditions.
When equipped with the right resources or management partner, owners are empowered to handle work they might otherwise outsource. Some of the most requested consulting projects are relatively straightforward, and we cover common examples in the sections below.
In the parking industry, RFPs are used to solicit bids from parking operators for managing facilities, installing equipment, or improving operations and performance. RFPs help property owners and municipalities compare the capabilities, approach, and financial terms from multiple vendors.
Many RFPs have a heavy emphasis on traditional solutions like parking gates, on-site personnel, and payment machines in our review of recommendations and RFPs developed by most parking consultants.
In reality, RFPs aren’t prohibitively complicated for most owners. If you want to learn more about writing and vetting RFPs that help you secure modern technology and parking solutions, we walk through a proven template and the most important questions and tips for success in our article on how to create a parking RFP.
Due diligence helps owners understand how a facility is performing. It usually involves reviewing financials and cash flow projections, researching occupancy, checking the facility and equipment condition, and spotting ways to boost income or cut unnecessary costs.
In many cases, owners can complete due diligence themselves or with support from a reliable management partner. Our article on parking due diligence offers a template and plain-language guidance to help you confidently assess performance and uncover the right details without an expensive, drawn-out consulting engagement.
Assessing options to improve the performance of an existing parking asset usually starts with a review of current operations, including payment options, pricing strategies, marketing opportunities, occupancy, and traffic flow. From there, owners can make changes like updating signage, adjusting rates and pricing capabilities, and using the latest parking technology to increase revenue and improve the customer experience.
With most parking consultants, the process of identifying opportunities and implementing suggestions is disconnected. The implementation work typically falls back on the owner, or consultants will charge extra to manage next steps (whether it’s outsourced or not).
An experienced parking solutions provider like AirGarage can bridge the gap between consulting recommendations and implementation. During engagements, we provide due diligence and audit services at no cost, including:
As a vertically-integrated provider, we also offer a better understanding of actual market dynamics (with proprietary data) and available technology solutions (e.g., license plate recognition, mobile payments, dynamic pricing, etc.). Plus, as an incentivized revenue-share partner, our goals are aligned with yours: increase overall asset performance and net operating income. Visit our consulting and advising page to learn more about our full range of capabilities and expertise.
