JLL launches car park solutions team

Property services company JLL has launched a dedicated car park solutions team to identify, unlock and enhance the value of car parks in towns and cities.

The multi-disciplinary team is led by Colin Chan, asset repositioning director. It has already entered into a strategic partnership with Town Centre Parking, a chartered surveyor specialising in parking and mobility, and CallisonRTKL, an architecture and design practice.

JLL believes a key catalyst for the focus on car parks will be structural changes related to a decline in car ownership and usage within the urban landscape over the coming decades, which will have a knock-on effect on demand for parking. The company says this shift means that suboptimal assets will be subject to higher risks of loss in income and capital value.

Research undertaken by JLL revealed there are over 23,000 car parks across the UK, 80% of these are surface car parks, many of which are currently being underutilised. The majority of these car parks are owned by the public sector, which is where lies the opportunity to unlock and enhance these assets.

Across the UK, JLL has advised on over 50 car parks located in prime town centres and at major transport hubs.

JLL has also been advising and repositioning car parks internationally. For example, at One Post Office Square in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, it advised on the transformation of an underutilised multi-storey car park that is set to deliver circa 80,000 square feet of prime office space within the central financial district.

The project will retain its car parking facilities, becoming Boston’s first automated car park, providing volume efficiencies by creating maximum capacity within minimum space.

Colin Chan said the creation of the team represents a significant opportunity. “We have created Car Park Solutions to provide clients with a dedicated team to help them tap into the wider JLL network, so they have the right people and services at their disposal as the wider context around car parks rapidly changes,” he said.

“I believe car parks were part of the solution for our towns and cities across the UK in the last century. With a bit of work, they can be a big part of the solution for the next century in tackling social, economic, and environmental issues we face ahead of us.”

Alistair Meadows, head of life sciences and alternatives, Capital Markets EMEA at JLL, added: “The launch of our dedicated car park solutions team is an exciting chapter for JLL and our clients. Driven by our data and research, UK wide car park opportunities exist to be unlocked for repositioning and redevelopment. This opens up potential alternative, mixed uses including housing, urban logistics, life sciences, and selfstorage.”