A New Vision for Empty Parking Fields

由专筑网pilewyj，李韧编译

现如今，通勤和网购等两大行为的增加，使许多实体零售业门店前或者后院的停车位过剩。这些老板们也需要寻求新方法来吸引人们光顾实体店。

美国的通勤习惯和停车需求正在改变。人们越来越多地舍弃机动车代步，转而选择使用公共交通工具、共享乘车、步行、骑自行车，甚至滑滑板车出门上班。根据停车分析和咨询公司Parkingmill的数据研究员EricScharnhorst的说法，大多数城镇的停车位数量都远远超过了汽车的数量。

在郊区和农村集市上，建筑物通常被一片空旷的停车场所包围。举个实例，怀俄明州的杰克逊地区，每个家庭平均应该有约27个停车位。在城市集市区，未充分利用的停车空地正在占用大量潜在的房地产地皮。此外，随着自动驾驶汽车的开发与应用的出现，停车场过剩的现象将会愈演愈烈，尤其是当自动驾驶汽车也在使用共享机制，自动驾驶汽车将花费更多的时间在运动中，而不是停车。

随着网上购物的普及，空旷的停车场似乎随处可见。那么，如何才能最高效率地利用这些空置的停车场呢？

随着在美国地区实地商店部署模式的更改，沃尔玛似乎已经渐渐适应这个趋势。这家零售巨头将着眼于开发位于停车场边缘的综合性、主题化、总体规划的地区。大部分的规划方针都包括增强的步行便利性、丰富街道生活和用于社区聚集的中心地带。沃尔玛的策略能让更多的人在路边停留，进行活动，促进购买从而获利。

在设计了超过500万平方英尺（46.5万平方米）的全球零售和混合用途开发项目后，就设计经验来说，高密度停车区对于市场来说是适宜的决策。在许多社区，当地的购物中心或杂货店基本上就是该区块人气最高的地方，人们在那里偶遇邻居、庆祝生日，或者庆祝圣诞佳节。规划的公共空间、餐饮和其他休闲功能能够增强社区体验的丰富性。

这些空闲停车区的潜在发展机会已经成熟，具体的使用密度和规划模式将根据市场条件和现有租户组合来确定。

以下成功案例将提供一些很好的参照与思考：

商场停车场改造

北卡罗来纳州Durham市南角的街道是传统的封闭式购物中心，周边有户外步行街区，该区每月接待超过100万游客，这里拥有北卡罗来纳州第一家Nordstrom和苹果商店。

2017年，Brookfield 零售公司希望利用这些未充分利用的停车场的潜力，以加快商业中心的发展。通过对百货公司、停车场使用情况的分析，整合住宅与零售空间的实际需求，该团队对场地进行了多阶段的总体规划。该规划使零售空间得到削减，同时利用停车场的土地进行建筑的搭建。通过整合不同的交通与人行流线，使流线与周边业态相互影响，实现更大影响力的综合体。

杂货店式购物中心的体验

佛罗里达州的Longboat Key是一个10英里（16公里）的岛屿，这里的居民都十分富裕，坐拥美丽的海滩，享受丰富的娱乐活动。然而，1984年，该镇对房屋建设密度方面的条例限制了发展。2013年，社区就如何实现智能、可持续增长向咨询服务公司寻求建议。小组发现，Publix超市是Longboat主要居民的社区聚集地，那里将是全新的活动中心。开放空间也将得到很好的利用，与经济发展相结合，促进更健康的生活方式、更舒适的步行空间，以及便利的农夫集市。

新规划方案仍在建设中，但是它已逐渐开始为Longboat Key提升了区域性地位。艺术、文化和教育中心的建设将使该地区变得更具吸引力，空闲的停车场则会拥有可持续发展的使命，提升绿被质量，并进行储水。

重新调整停车平台的功能

由于停车平台的建造方式，无论是现浇混凝土还是预制混凝土，它们都不太容易用作他用。建筑师也参考了将停车露台转换为居住空间的想法，但问题在于高昂的成本，所以这也并不是转换的最佳方式。通常，现有停车平台的基础无法承受住宅或办公荷载，楼层之间的净空高度也低于办公建筑的标准。

然而，这些停车平台可以作为未来自动驾驶车辆的停车场。它们将为2020年大量投入使用的自动驾驶车辆提供停车位。从而节省街道空间。

此外，新停车平台的建设也非常昂贵。平均而言，每一个停车平台空间的成本至少为15000至20000美元，而每一个停车区的成本为7000美元。这些数字只代表建设成本，土地隐藏价值则更不用说。所以停车场建设节省的成本可以在一定程度上提高开发商的收益能力。

大部分停车场已经做好了迎接新角色的准备，它们将为人们提供更城市化、更具联系的社区体验。社区的长期可持续性发展和潜力的增值，以及土地使用的需求都将在停车场相关的总体规划中得到体现与执行。例如，对于许多购物中心和业主来说，道路可见的连接性至关重要，因此停车场新用途不应阻隔消费者与购物中心的各种连接。

目前，停车位似乎仍然是人们所忽略的一块用地。但是，随着居民、消费者和社区需求的变化，它们可以被重新定义，并发展出更有意义的用途。

作者简介：

ANGELO CARUSI是Cooper Carry零售工作室的负责人。

Two major shifts in consumer behavior involving commuting habits and online shopping have left many retail owners and operators with an excess of surface-level and deck parking. At the same time, tenants need to find new ways of attracting people to their brick-and-mortar stores.
American commuting habits, and therefore their parking needs, are changing. People are increasingly leaving their cars behind in favor of riding transit, ridesharing, walking, biking, and even scootering. According to data scientist Eric Scharnhorst of the parking analytics and consulting startup Parkingmill, most towns have more parking spaces than they have cars.
In suburban and rural markets, buildings often are surrounded by a sea of empty parking spaces. For instance, Jackson, Wyoming, has 27 parking spaces for each of its households, according to Parkingmill. In urban markets, underused parking decks are wasting valuable real estate. Plus, this too-much-parking trend is expected to accelerate with the adoption of autonomous vehicles, which, especially if they are shared, will spend more time in motion instead of being parked.
As online shopping grows more popular, it is becoming commonplace to see fields of empty parking lots at shopping malls and grocery-anchored centers. What, then, is the highest and best use for these unoccupied parking lots and decks?
Walmart is embracing the trend with the rollout of its new Town Center model in several locations around the United States. The retail giant is reorganizing outparcels into comprehensive, themed, master-planned communities along the edges of its parking lots. Each reimagined Town Center plan includes enhanced walkability, street life, and a central community gathering place. Walmart predominantly is showing developers how these properties can be developed. It is a smart move by Walmart; the right mix of uses and programming generates more feet on the street, extends dwell time, and therefore increases spending.
After designing more than 5 million square feet (465,000 sq m) of retail and mixed-use developments all over the world, our experience at Cooper Carry tells us that densifying parking lots is a good idea in the right market. In many neighborhoods, the local mall or grocery-anchored center is the de-facto community gathering place where people bump into their neighbors, celebrate birthdays, and visit Santa. An opportunity exists to enhance the experience in these communities with programmed public spaces, dining, and other complementary uses.
The empty parking lots at these de-facto community centers are ripe for development. And the density and mix of uses should be informed by market conditions and the existing tenant mix.

Here are a few examples of successful approaches:
Reinventing Mall Parking
The Streets at Southpoint in Durham, North Carolina, is a traditional enclosed mall with an outdoor pedestrian district. The retail destination receives more than 1 million visitors per month and is home to North Carolina’s first Nordstrom and Apple stores.
In 2017, Brookfield Retail Properties saw the potential to reenvision underused parking areas to increase development at this highly successful regional mall. In combination with the reduced influence of traditional department stores and changing parking needs, land was available to strengthen the property by adding uses including residential and specialty retail. The team developed a multiphase master plan that removed some retail space and added new construction in the parking lots. The plan we developed connects the already strong vehicular and pedestrian routes with new routes, linking the entire property and its new uses together into a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Redefining the Experience at Grocery-Anchored Shopping Centers
Florida’s Longboat Key is a 10-mile (16 km) barrier island home to affluent residents, beautiful beaches, and year-round recreation. However, density and real estate codes adopted by the town in 1984 restricted growth. The community sought recommendations from a ULI Advisory Services panel in 2013 on ways to achieve smart, sustainable growth. That panel, on which I served, found that the Publix supermarket was the community gathering place for Longboat Key residents, and there was an opportunity to create a true Town Center there. We created a master plan that incorporated new public and private development around Publix not only to support the local economy, but also to foster healthy lifestyles, walkability, open space, and community events like a farmers market.
This reimagined Town Center plan is still being implemented, though it is well on its way to giving Longboat Key the unique sense of place it deserves. For instance, construction is expected to begin soon on the Longboat Key Arts, Culture, and Education Center, which will leverage existing adjacent surplus parking to reduce its development footprint, preserve vegetation, and improve stormwater management capacity for the broader Town Center.

Repurposing Parking Decks
Because of the way that parking decks are built, whether cast-in-place or pre-cast concrete, they are not easy to adapt for other uses. We are seeing a lot of discussion around turning unused decks into residential space, but that will be problematic, costly, and not the best choice for conversion. Usually, existing foundations are not able to sustain residential or office loads, and the deck-to-deck clearance heights are too low for those uses.
However, these decks would be great staging areas for autonomous vehicles. According to a report by Business Insider Intelligence, 10 million self-driving cars could be on the road by 2020. To prepare for them, building owners should consider providing the electrical infrastructure for vehicle recharging, which could take autonomous vehicles off the street when not in use and free up surface parking spaces.
Also, parking decks are incredibly expensive to provide. On average, it costs $15,000 to $20,000 or more per parking-deck space and $7,000 per parking-lot space. And these amounts represent only the construction costs; the land value would vary greatly. Costs saved on reducing parking expenditures can increase a developer’s ability to include affordable housing and other uses critical to the neighborhood.
Much of our parking is ready for a new life—a rebirth into a more urban, connected community experience. The master plans for these parking lots need to be carefully executed in order to ensure long-term sustainability and added value for the community. The needs of existing land uses need to be taken into consideration. For example, visibility from the road is still of paramount importance for many mall and shopping center anchors, so the new uses should not impede a consumer’s visual connections with the center.
At present, parking spaces do not inspire a strong sense of place. But they can be reimagined into their highest and best use, as the needs of tenants, consumers, and communities change.

ANGELO CARUSI is principal of Cooper Carry’s retail studio.