🌎 Global

Commercial Bay

Seamless visitor parking for Auckland’s premium commercial tower

At a glance

Visitor parking

Great experiences for visitors to Commercial Bay with automated invitations and seamless car park access

Tenant experience

With Parkable, clients’ employees can access Commercial Bay’s unleased parking spots, giving them more opportunity to park onsite

Extra revenue

Instead of leaving unleased parks empty, Parkable enables Commercial Bay to generate revenue by making those parks available to clients on a casual basis

About Commercial Bay

Business overview

Commercial Bay is one of New Zealand’s premium mixed-use commercial and retail precincts. Situated on Auckland’s waterfront block between lower Queen and Albert Streets, its location is second to none. Completed in 2020, the PwC Tower comprises 39 floors of premium, A-grade office accommodation and links seamlessly to the Commercial Bay retail centre, a world-class urban shopping, entertainment and hospitality environment. NZX listed Precinct Properties also owns connected office towers Jarden House, 29 Customs Street, HSBC Tower and One Queen (currently under development). These buildings, together with the retail centre have created a working population of 10,000 people.

"Parkable's invitation system and integration with access control is seamless. It gives our tenants the confidence that their guests will have a great first impression when they arrive."

Peter Bowden, Asset Manager for Precinct Properties

The motivation

Excellent amenity for top global and New Zealand businesses

When Commercial Bay opened its doors in July 2020, Precinct Properties’ Asset Manager Peter Bowden wanted to make sure that their newest premium asset had a professional and seamless parking system for clients and visitors.

Standard visitor parking systems generally involve swipe cards, entering pin numbers, or contact with the car park administrator to gain access, and include manual and cumbersome booking systems with spreadsheets. At Commercial Bay, they wanted a cutting-edge solution that would create seamless experiences for visitors, and less hassle for administrators.

The solution

Automated invites and seamless gate access

With Parkable’s visitor parking system, visitors to the PwC Tower receive an automatically-generated email invitation to the car park, customised with Commercial Bay branding. The invitation provides clear instructions on how to access Commercial Bay’s car park, including the car park address, parking instructions, their booking time and bay number.

Upon arrival at the car park, visitors use the Parkable invitation on their phone to open Commercial Bay’s access gates. The email invitation effectively turns into a secure access key, so there’s no need for pin codes, swipe cards, or administrative involvement. Because Parkable integrates with Commercial Bay’s Gallagher access system, they can provide a great entry and exit experience without compromising on security.

Kendall Irvine, Event Manager at Generator, said: “Parkable has been a great, easy booking system to use for clients at Generator PwC Commercial Bay. With a few details needed, it takes 2 minutes to book a car park and the clients are immediately sent the information ready to drive down the parking ramp onsite for whenever their event might be!"

"Rather than having vacant parks sit empty, Parkable enables us to make those parks available to tenants on a flexible basis, and they're now 85% occupied on any given workday."

Peter Bowden

The results

Great visitor experiences and simple processes for administrators

Parkable ensures that visitors to Commercial Bay have a seamless parking experience, aligning the car park with the PwC Tower’s premium ethos. As well as providing a great service for visitors and administrators, Parkable’s visitor parking software allows Commercial Bay to generate revenue from vacant car parks.

Once Commercial Bay saw the benefits of Parkable, they decided to expand their use of the platform to manage and monetise other vacant parking spots. These parks are unoccupied until tenants move into the precinct over the next two years, and without Parkable they would sit empty.

With Parkable, Commercial Bay allows their clients’ employees to book, access, and pay for casual use of those parks, giving them more opportunity to park onsite and monetising an otherwise unused asset. These parks have been very popular: on the average workday, the parks are 85% occupied, and they’re also being used by clients after hours and on weekends.