It’s a concrete slab in a heated underground parkade in downtown Edmonton. It also comes with two bright yellow lines on either side of it — a parking stall.
How much would you pay for a parking stall in the downtown core? It appears the price is going up.
One parking stall in Edmonton’s Ultima Tower recently sold for the cool price of $75,000. It’s a record-breaking sale for Westrich Pacific, the company behind the condominium development on 102 Avenue and 103 Street.
“When I first heard about it I was shocked. I’m not used to $75,000 a stall,” co-CEO Richie Lam said.
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Condos in the building went on the market in 2012. Each unit comes with at least one parking stall, but owners have the option of buying additional spaces. At the time, a parking stall cost between $25,000 to $30,000.
“It’s actually one of the biggest costs,” Lam explained, “especially if you have to go 50 to 60 feet underground. It’s a huge cost. We’d rather not build parking stalls if we had the choice but the market demands it.”
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Fast-forward five years, add a new arena and additional surrounding development, and you have what Lam believes is a record-setting sale in the city.
“This is a record, not just for us but I think for downtown Edmonton as a whole, for a stall,” he said. “It makes sense, though. The pure economics of it. Anytime you have a dwindling supply of a product – be it a parking stall – and a strong demand, you’re going to get a higher price on it.
“The demand is huge. There’s a lot more people coming to ICE District, a lot more traffic, less parking… That’s the new bench mark.”
Lam said Westrich Pacific’s Encore Tower, also in ICE District, will start selling parking stalls at $75,000. He’s also spoken with other developers who said $75,000 is pretty much the going rate for a downtown parking stall these days. He expects the price will only increase in the next couple of years as demand increases.
“I won’t be surprised if in a year or two years from now it gets close to $80,000 to $100,000 for a parking stall.”