Relaxed Parking Regulations Stimulate Leasing Activity

Devin Klein

Santa Monica has reduced its parking requirements. The new requirements have reduced from one spot for every 75 square feet to one spot for every 300 square feet and one spot for every 500 square feet for restaurants. For adaptive reuse, parking requirements have also been reduced to one spot for every 2,500 square feet. The result has had a significant impact on retail leasing activity, according to research from JLL.

“Santa Monica business district has over 10,000 parking spaces and much of it was not being used efficiently,” Devin Klein, a associate at JLL, tells GlobeSt.com. “By reducing the amount of required parking, the overall cost to build new housing can be lowered, remove some of the challenges to opening businesses, activate creative reuse of existing buildings and encourage drivers to more efficiently use the spaces that already exist in the Downtown Santa Monica corridor. The retail district in Downtown Santa Monica has ventured beyond the Third Street Promenade, which was once the only “go-to” retail street and spilled over to neighboring 4th Street, 2nd Street, Wilshire Blvd, Santa Monica Blvd, Broadway, Colorado and Ocean Ave.”