Come for the parking, stay for the game?
Tonight the Winnipeg Jets will host the New York Rangers, a game that is sure to be of high energy following New York's embarrassing 2-0 shutout to the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday.
Meanwhile across the street, another embarrassing performance will occur. The award-winning Portage Place parkade will fill up, at $10 a spot, as Winnipeggers drive in from the 'burbs to scramble for whatever parking they can find. Parking, of no surprise to anyone, fetches a premium price on game day nights. For FNP, this is bonus revenue, revenue they would not have otherwise had. If it were not for the Winnipeg Jets, the Portage Place parkade would sit empty.
After a healthy debate in my last post about this I was able to figure something out. Policy Frog's astute questioning led me to something I had not even thought of.
To recap, FNP has a promotion on where if you get food at a restaurant at the Forks, you will receive a free parking ticket for the PP parkade. The restaurant is required to cough up $5 as a "finders fee" of sorts, a modest tip jar to FNP for having the kind-hearted goodwill to send the Forks some business during the slowest times of the year.
The "kind-hearted goodwill" part is where it gets embarrassing.
As I said, through the comment debate, it dawned on me that an evening of parking at the PP parkade for three hours, at the regular rate of $1 per half-hour, would cost you $6. On game day, it's $10. But FNP has the Forks restaurants pay $5.
Which means FNP isn't paying "half" of the cost of the spot at all, which was what was previously deducted. No no, FNP is only paying 1/6th of the cost, making the restaurant pay for 5/6ths. The cost of operating the parkade is clearly pegged to $1 per half hour, but FNP has the restaurants paying for 2.5 hours of parking. Which is to say, FNP is basically making the restaurants absorb the - entire - cost of parking at Portage Place for their patrons.
The idea that FNP is paying "half" is silly. Sure, half of 10 is 5. But the non-inflated cost of parking for the game is $6. Which would mean...if FNP profits $1 per 3 hours of paid parking, then they aren't paying anything, and instead making the restaurants pay.
So in short...FNP has figured out a way to drive a small amount of business to restaurants at the Forks, and have the restaurants pay full regular price for the tickets, and only make it - look - like FNP is paying half of the cost, because they can point to the game-day rate.
Embezzle money out of the Forks businesses and make it look like you're in it for half, AND make it look like it's smiles all around. Is FNP on the Downtown BIZ stakeholders list? Sure is. This shouldn't surprise you, it's right out of the PR spin class playbook.
4 comments:
I dunno. I have worked at three places with shared parking and where validation was offered and there was always a charge back to the validator.
It saved one merchant / department from getting 'validation happy' and passing out free parking to anyone they wanted. It also ensured that those who had clients / customers that used the parking lot the most paid a higher percentage of the costs of the lot than those who relied more on walk up or short term traffic.
Seems like a fair, and fairly common, arrangement.
Is my math wrong? $1 per 1/2 hour. Does $5 not mean 2 1/2 hrs of parking? Or am I just confused? LOL
Wow I am SO glad you pointed that out and now, can add myself as the third embarrassment, since I'm keeping track.
Bad maths are fixed. Point still stands!
@Christian
Makes sense to charge to prevent "validation happiness." But still, it's FNP that owns both lots. Charge the businesses to park there, and charge them full price for validation tickets, even though it is 100% bonus revenue.
That's low.
Post a Comment