Parking in Amman

Jul 09 By Rami Batarseh Pubslish: Jordan Property Magazine & Al Ghad Newspapr (arabic version)

You drive down to Al Swaifyeh to pick up an item or two, you are listening to music and your mood is good. After you zigzag your way through the maze of one-way streets and the dead ends, you reach your destination to find out there is no parking, in fact, cars are double or triple parked in front of your store. So you go through the maze again and try a second time, but there is no hope. Your frustration increases, your music is off and your mood is changing. You have few options: 1) double or triple park like the others and risk getting your side mirror

scraped by another car, 2) drive into an empty lot and risk getting a flat tire, or 3) forget the whole thing and go home!

In 1944, Harold Samuel used a vastly popular phrase among the real estate experts that states the three most important factors in determining the desirability of a property are "location, location, location". Well, in Amman, I would change it to “parking, parking, parking”. There is no doubt that currently in Amman, properties with sufficient parking are more in demand than properties with good locations.

Our biggest challenge as real estate brokers is finding office buildings with sufficient parking. A typical request from our corporate and government clients would be a 2,500 sq.m. building with 60 parking! However, I don’t believe there is one building in Amman which can provide that. Almost all office buildings in Amman have 1 parking space for every 100m2, so for a 2,500 sq.m. building you’ll have 25 parking, that’s 35 parking spaces short from what’s needed! Lately we have been proposing to our clients to purchase an adjacent land for parking, but can you imagine, spending JD1mil + for dunum of land just for parking?!

Think about it! How many people can fit in a 100 sq.m. office? Space planners estimate an office employee requires, on average, 15 sq.m. of space, which adds up to about 7 persons per 100 sq.m. If we assume that half of these people have cars, (forget about visitors parking), we need parking for 3.5 cars, rounded down to 3 parking per 100sq.m. So common sense says we need 3 parking per 100 sq.m. so why do we have only 1? Not to mention that some businesses, like restaurants, where you can fit 50 people in 100 sq.m. you would need far more parking spaces.

The good news is that Amman still has a lot of empty land, and valet-parking attendees don’t need to drive too far before they can find an empty lot to park your car. But how long can this last? With lack of a good public transportation system, the situation will get rapidly worse as the number of cars in Amman is increasing at a phenomenal rate and more empty lots are being developed.

You can’t imagine how many people would rather rent a villa for their office needs rather than take a space in an office building! Number one reason is parking. That’s sad! Why do we have all these hi-rise buildings and skyscraper towers if they don’t satisfy the needs of the ultimate users? We are not urban planners, we are real estate consultants, we look at things from the point of view of the users, and we hear and see what users of real estate want and need. Real estate investment is a long term investment, you ought to foresee what will happen 5-10 years from now and plan accordingly. It is quite clear that buildings without sufficient parking will be very difficult to rent, and if you can’t rent your property, there is no income, and if there is no income, your property is useless.

Rami’s top ten on parking for property owners & developers: 1. Don’t ever substitute parking space for office space 2. If your building lacks parking, covert some of the office space to parking
3. Building with sufficient parking brings higher rents and appreciates faster 4. Building with sufficient parking attracts bigger and stronger tenants
5. Account for 3 parking spaces per 100sq.m. for your next project 6. Please don’t lock your underneath parking garage and use it as storage 7. Lack of parking is the # 1 reason why tenants move from a location
8. Parking conflicts among tenants is # 1 complaint to landlords 9. Don’t count on the pavement (sidewalk) as a parking for your property
10. Don’t count on your neighbors’ empty lot for your tenants parking