How to earn from public parking during vacancy

When an anchor tenant moves out, the car park goes quiet—but costs don’t. Lease-up or refurb can leave rows of spaces unused for weeks. That’s the gap this playbook fills.

Because standard rules don’t flex: fixed rules meet wobbly demand, and teams juggle swipe cards, spreadsheets, and last-minute favours.
Result: Unused concrete, missed cash—right when the asset could use a hand.

How the car park earns (and returns)
The car park doesn’t have to wait—it can earn in the lull and hand spaces back in clicks when leases land. Tenants stay first, guardrails keep it civil, and the setup reverses without a project. No operators. No capex saga. No drama.

Peak Equities: 125 spaces to bridge revenue gap
This isn’t a thought experiment—it’s a live pattern that Peak Equities ran at a Melbourne asset during lease-up. Real asset, real spaces (125+ idle after anchor tenant moved out), real results.

What follows is a productised playbook for running the same pattern on Parkable — features and steps that are typical. See how to treat parking like a flexible capacity, not a fixed cost—earning during the lull with public daily and monthly options, then returning spaces to tenants in clicks.

What you have
You have unused parking spaces as well as spaces that are leased by tenants. The car park is access-controlled.

What you need
To replicate this you’ll need: Parkable software and internet connectivity in the car park. Parkers use the free app to book, park and access the car park, so you’ll no longer need swipe cards for car park access.

The how-to (six steps)
1) Find the real surplus
Parkable maps every space using our digital map tool and tags unleased and allocated spaces, based on the information you provide. You can use the dashboard to clearly see what is allocated and what is available to start earning.

2) Connect access so only booked sessions open the gate via the app
Parkable integrates with your existing access control (gate/ANPR) so the app is the key: the gate opens only for a valid booking - public or tenant. We coordinate with your vendor to set this up.

3) Set up payments & payouts (how the money lands)
Add your payment profile in the admin panel so money flows without manual remittance gymnastics.

For paying parkers, casual/public bookings charge when a session starts. Monthly permits bill on a cycle (e.g., monthly), with automated invoices and receipts.

4) Open select spaces for short-term income
Turn on a subset of spaces and list them publicly in the Parkable app so anyone nearby can find, book, and pay at the pricing and hours you set. Your listing shows location, hours, max stay, price, access notes, and images so drivers know exactly what they’re booking.

Because access is app-gated, the gate only opens for a valid booking.

(You’ll also get a proposal for car park signage so that everyone knows which spaces are for which use.)

5) Flip spaces back to tenants, instantly
As new leases land, set their rules—not new spreadsheets. Move as many spaces as needed over to tenant use in seconds and invite the new tenants by company domain (e.g., @tenantco.com) so employees auto-join the right tenant group. The app is the key—no badge printing. And access is enforced at the gate. Tenants stay first.

Mentally: a tap—income when you need it, tenant certainty when you don’t.

6) Measure and replicate
Reporting shows usage trends, income by category and payout summaries. Use the dashboard to spot any day-of-week slack — which could become the quiet windows that pay. This is visibility from day one: see who parked, when, and how much they paid.

Payments, simply (what finance cares about)
Settlement: payouts are batched to your nominated account monthly.
Invoices & receipts: auto-issued to parkers; the team can resend/download from the admin dashboard.
Refunds & disputes: issue partial/full refunds from the admin panel; easily see session logs to support any dispute response.

Guardrails that keep it tenant-safe
App-gated access: only booked sessions trigger the gate; tenant allocations keep it tenant-first.
No double-charging: one booking → one charge; edits create an audit trail.
Clear ownership: one bank account per site/entity to avoid payout mix-ups.

Signals it’s working (ops + finance)
The quiet days shrink; you can predict more easily how much you’ll earn.
Payouts land cleanly with reports finance can reconcile in minutes.
Fewer “any chance of a space?” messages for Property teams; mornings calm down.
Reallocating spaces to tenants takes clicks, not projects.

Reusable pattern (steal this)
Lease-up → switch on surplus now → keep tenants first → change it as leases start. It won’t replace rent—but it beats zero and keeps momentum.

Why this matters
Parking doesn’t have to wait for the building to come back to life. Treated as flexible capacity, it can carry some weight in the lull and slide back to tenants the moment leases land. That’s the practical win: modest, predictable side income now; tenant certainty later—on the same platform. Peak Equities proved it isn’t theory. This is a repeatable move any asset can run when quiet floors make the car park go mute.