Parking lots, garages in 'survival' mode while waiting for workers to return

For years, the back wall of Juan Gomez's parking booth on Gloucester Street was covered in keys, but these days the rows of hooks hang empty.

On Tuesday, a solitary set dangled from a hook near the bottom of board.

"I had maybe 80, 100 keys," The Capital Parking Inc. attendant recalled. "Now it's empty. It's nothing."

Lots and garages in central Ottawa report similar struggles. After more than two years of pandemic shutdowns and people working from home, one manager said his company is in "survival" mode, desperately hoping for government workers and others to return downtown.

"This has to change … we have to see more people coming into the parking lot for us to be able to continue surviving," said Ramesh Abrol, with Advantage Parking Ltd.

"There is absolutely no profit. We are barely making ends meet right now."

Abrol manages six lots, one of which has been shut down due to a lack of traffic, while a second is unstaffed and only open to monthly customers.

He acknowledged no one likes to pay for parking and the industry doesn't tend to get a lot of sympathy, but said the company is doing what it can to keep its workers employed.

Advantage relied on CERB to keep things going and the manager said he took a pay cut. Still, the company had to let a "couple" of staff members go.

"It's been pretty tough to be honest with you," Abrol said. 

"You're looking at approximately 25-30 per cent business," compared to before COVID-19.

Waiting on workers to return

Gomez has worked in parking for 19 years.

Before the pandemic he said it wasn't unusual to have more than 100 cars crammed into the lot, but as he looked over his weekly reports Tuesday, the figures for recent days read 49 and 64.

The same goes for monthly passes. Typically there are about 60 at a time, according to Gomez, but right now that number has dropped to 20.

COVID-19 "hit very hard," he said, estimating the lot is seeing roughly 50 per cent of the volume it did before the pandemic.

Gomez said his hours have dropped along with the number of customers, from a full-time role of eight to 10 hours a day to just five or six, forcing him to look for other work on weekends.

The daily rate at the lot was lowered to $13 during the height of the pandemic in order to draw people, he added, but it's since climbed back up to the $16 rate it was before, which hasn't gone unnoticed.

People became comfortable working from home and are finding that between paying for gas, lunch and parking, the return to work seems expensive, said Gomez.

He has noticed some busy and slow days over the past few weeks, as downtown workers come back to the office for one or two days a week.

But Gomez said he's not sure the lot will be seeing the same level of traffic it used to — suggesting something in the range of 60-70 per cent is more likely in the short term.

The city has seen parking revenue plummet too.

It operates 3,789 on-street spaces and 2,751 spots at five parking garages and 11 lots, according to Scott Caldwell, area manager for the Transitway and parking.

In 2020 and 2021 they brought in less than half of the money they had in 2019. But Caldwell said demand has been rising — July hit 70 per cent of the amount recorded in the same month in 2019.

Abrol would be glad to see those numbers. He estimated Advantage will need 50-60 per cent to make ends meet.

"Survival depends on that," he said.

"Our surplus is gone completely. We're just running on a month-to-month kind of basis."