In January, the most expensive parking space ever sold by Harrods, in
Knightsbridge, central London, went for £200,000. Now the company is on the
verge of selling another in its branded car-parking complex. On the market
for £225,000, and with a 93-year lease, it has gone to sealed bids and is
expected to fetch much more. Harrods estimates that it will equate to £1,800
per sq ft, roughly the cost of a pied-à-terre in Mayfair.
At the same time, Quintessentially Estates, the property-finding arm of the
top-end concierge service, has just looked at a garage for a client that is
off the King’s Road, holds three cars and is on the market for £600,000.
Parking spaces in London are big business – and developers are starting to
realise it. High-end buyers are not just looking for a luxury place to live;
they want somewhere equally luxurious to park their car. The Harrods spaces,
for example, each measure 1,238 sq ft (large enough to park a Rolls-Royce
Phantom or a Porsche Cayenne) and include gated security access, CCTV
monitoring, car cleaning and maintenance – although there is a £650 annual
service charge per space. Other services, such as valet parking, garage
repair visits and polishing, are extra.
Unwilling to walk the streets of Kensington or Mayfair to your space? In the
more exclusive parts of London, built-in garages are becoming increasingly de
rigueur; and, not surprisingly, they can incorporate some nifty
features.
Developments by the top-end interior designers Candy & Candy, for example,
include garages with features such as licence-plate recognition, leather
walls, to prevent the paintwork getting scratched and rotating turntables,
which obviate the need to engage reverse gear. At the Candys’ latest
project, Chesham Place, in Belgravia, due to be completed in August, and
with prices starting at £13m and go up to £24m, key fobs take you to your
designated car-park floor, while floor lighting will guide drivers to their
personalised space.
Capital Residential Management, a London-based developer, is working on a £45m
house in Cheval Place, Knightsbridge, where the parking system includes a
drop-down car lift, with a turntable in the basement that lines up the cars
to be driven out. The company also regularly uses a stacking system that
holds two or three cars at any time, and is big enough for 4WDs.
Robert Bailey, a London-based property-finder, says he looked recently at a
place in Belgravia that has a garage with a central suctioning channel, so
when the car is washed, the water is siphoned away. The garage itself is
decked out in polished plaster and has a separate washroom for the chauffeur.
Another of his clients had a glass lift installed in his Knightsbridge home,
making it easier for him to descend to the basement to admire his Ferrari.
The trend is extending beyond the capital. Dario Franchitti, a Scottish racing
driver who made his name on the American IndyCar circuit, has installed a
stacking parking system with room for about 20 cars in his £3m home, Rednock
Castle in Perthshire, where he lives with his wife, the Hollywood actor
Ashley Judd. Computer sensors allow him to store cars just inches apart.
“Everyone’s asking for them,” says Jeremy Lambourne, the founder of the search
agent Oakhall Property Source, who estimates that 70% of his clients
consider off-street parking a must.
Lucy Russell, head of Quintessentially Estates, agrees. Many of her clients
are not satisfied with secure underground parking. Instead, they want
someone there 24 hours a day, as well as high-tech video sensors to watch
over their wheels. “When you’ve got a car that’s worth up to £350,000, you
really want to keep it in a safe place,” she says.
If a client uses the car only rarely, Russell will often get requests to find
storage space outside the capital. “You get amazing garages just outside
London designed to store cars for easy access, especially vintage cars that
the owner might only use when touring France.” It is not just the security
of the car that matters: the better-known clients demand personal privacy as
well, which means being able to get in and out of the car in a garage
without being spotted by the paparazzi.
None of this comes cheap, of course. Tom Lamb, a negotiator in the Sloane
Street office of Savills estate agency, reckons that parking or a garage in
central London can add anything between £150,000 and £500,000 to the value
of a property. As for putting in your own stacking system, the bill,
including digging out the space under a house, could be anywhere from
£150,000 up to £750,000, says David Tucker, the managing director of Capital
Residential Managment – and that’s before you have added the leather walls
and other extras.
Shop around, however, and you might strike lucky. Mark O’Callaghan, 38, who
lives in Edith Grove, Chelsea, managed to bag a secure underground parking
space below the World’s End estate, on the King’s Road. The flats were
designed as a luxury complex, but the developer went bust and the local
authority bought it. Each flat has its own parking space, and they are now
available for local residents to rent.
So, for the modest sum of £280 per year, O’Callaghan has plenty to spare on
investing in what goes inside the garage. Small wonder he drives a Porsche.
Harrods Estates, 020 7225 6506, www.harrodsestates.co.uk
