An owner’s parking consultant is an independent parking professional retained by the owner, rather than by the architect or contractor, to define operating requirements and review the design on the owner’s behalf from feasibility through opening.
- Also called
- Owner-side parking professional, owner’s parking advisor
- Delivers
- Operating program, circulation review, technology plan, lifecycle assessment, design review, opening readiness
- Key fact
- On design-build, the owner’s criteria documents are the main lever on the result
Most parking projects have parking expertise somewhere on the team: a parking designer working for the architect, or a parking specialist inside a design-build consortium. The owner’s consultant is different because of who it answers to. Its job is to represent how the facility must operate, and to check every design against that, without a stake in the design or the construction price.
Six deliverables
- Operational program at feasibility: customer groups, demand and peaks, pricing, enforcement, staffing and service standards.
- Access and circulation assessment at concept: street access, reservoir space, internal movements, geometry and pedestrian routes.
- Technology infrastructure plan from concept to schematic: PARCS, payment, LPR, guidance, communications, power and EV charging.
- Lifecycle financial assessment at schematic: alternatives compared on operating cost, renewal and revenue, not construction cost alone.
- Functional design review at each milestone, including design-build submittals.
- Operational readiness before opening: testing, training and a peak rehearsal.
When to hire one
Before the first design decision, and on design-build before the criteria or bridging documents are written. Boise’s parking structure design guidelines recommend engaging a parking-structure design specialist on any parking project and, on design-build, having the owner’s criteria team led by a parking consultant.
The Parkonomics view
The owner pays for every operating mistake for decades, so the owner should have someone at the table whose only job is how the building will run. Give that person a defined scope and real review authority, written into the design contracts and RFP, rather than an invitation to comment after the design is set.
Related terms: Bridging Documents, Design-Build, Progressive Design-Build, MacLeamy Curve, Functional Design Review, Parking Demand Analysis
Further reading: Designed to Park, or Designed to Impress?
Need an independent read on a parking design or design-build criteria? Work with us.