R EA L E STATE
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
WINTER 2019 | PAGE 13
Real Estate Winter 2019
Garages Expand Into New Roles as Cities Reevaluate Transportation
by Matt Delaney
Falls Church News-Press
As the City of Falls Church moves toward accommodating car-alternative transportation, City officials are following the consensus among urban planners that investing in a public parking garage is passé. But does a government-level disinterest in building a public utility represent a budding trend of disinterest in residents’ own garages? The short answer is no; although with shifting generational and municipal priorities, the garage is primed for an evolution. Garages are in a weird place.
Dense cities — like Washington, D.C. — are beginning to focus support on different modes of transportation. Uber’s CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told CNN in November that he hopes city residents won’t own a car in the next 10 years. Realtor Magazine reported in October that housing analysts believe by as soon as 2030 garages could become less of a fixture of the home. For the suburbanites who stay outside of the anchor cities proper – such as Falls Church – but still frequent the metro center for work or play, the car they own may struggle to find a place inside this revitalized cityscape.
And if loses its primary function for transportation, residents may begin to see less reason to keep or buy a home with one attached. That line of thinking is a bit far-fetched, according to Mark Turner, owner and founder of the design and build firm GreenSpur, Inc on W. Broad St. He believes the American love for the car holds strong, especially outside of urban areas where the car remains a vital part of everyday life. But he and his team, including director of design Zach Gasper, have been innovating some new twists on the garage’s conventional function for vehicle and tool storage.
AN EXAMPLE of GreenSpur, Inc.’s flex space the firm designed and built in Arlington Forest, where the client wanted a space detached from the home roughly the size of a two-car garage (Photo: Courtesy GreenSpur, Inc.)
“You can intentionally design garages as more than just garages, in our opinion, but as a flex space,” Turner said, who went on to say how Airbnb is changing the way people look at their homes and different ways to monetize them. “Now people think ‘I can
rent this thing out,’ instead of putting a car and some bikes in it. Design-wise, if you can make it attractive but still flexible, we’re finding that clients in the market really demand that, especially millennials and even empty nesters”
INSIDE: Live Look at Market for Homebuyers page 15 | “Amazon Effect” Has Come & Gone page 18 | F.C. Home Sales #s pages 19–20
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