Real estate company Deka has to pay a lot of money for about forty parking spaces in a garage under the Viñoly office building on Gustav Mahlerplein on the Zuidas in Amsterdam. That is according to a ruling the court made this week.
A parking agreement was concluded with Q-Park, the owner of the parking garage, to ensure that more parking spaces could be used than was actually allowed under the municipal parking policy. However, an average of forty parking spaces were then structurally unused for years.
Availability allowance
The agreement stipulated that the real estate company would then still pay a so-called availability fee to Q-Park. That amount was just as high as the amount for an office subscription with full use.
The Court of Appeal previously ruled that the availability fee did not have to be paid after all, because Q-Park rented out the empty spaces between 2014 and 2015 to paying short-term parkers. But that is no longer the case. Since April 2019, 40 parking spaces have a ‘reserved’ sign. Also, the parking garage is never completely full.
Vacancy risk
“Under these new circumstances, the vacancy risk remains with the party that must bear that risk according to the Parking Agreement, namely Deka,” the court writes in the judgment. For the period from April 2, 2019 to June 30, 2020, the availability fee is calculated at 493,476.53 euros including VAT and that money must still be paid.
Parking spaces on the Zuidas are very expensive. A ‘very spacious parking space’ under another tower on the Zuidas could be bought for approximately 100,000 euros, as a result of a report from the Youtube program Pure Luxe.