Calgary's $375-a-month parking fees highest in Canada

Parking in Calgary is more expensive than anywhere else in Canada.

A survey by real estate services firm Colliers International this week says a typical parking spot in Calgary costs $375 a month. A similar spot in Toronto is about $300 a month.

Calgary's thriving economy is driving up the demand for office space and that affectsthe cost of parking, said Keith Reading, a spokesman for Colliers.

The creation of moreprivate and city-owned above-ground parking lots would help, but Reading says most of that space has disappeared.

"We've lost some of the surface parking due to condo development, and now we're seeing office development as well," he said.

Rates for unreserved parking spaces across Canada have gone up 14 per cent in the past year, with the median rate now $194.51 per month, according to theColliers report.

The five most expensive cities to park in Canada are:

1. Calgary: $375 per month.
2. Toronto: $300 per month.
3. Montreal: $259 per month.
4. Ottawa: $195 per month.
5. Vancouver: $194 per month.

Calgary business considers suburbs

Richard Dillabough, who runs a benefits consulting company called the Daedalus Group out of a downtown Calgaryoffice, said the high cost of parking is hurting his business.

Most of his clients are also downtown, so he needs to park at short-term lots when he meets with them, sometimes several times a day. The parking costs add up to about $500 a month.

Dillabough says he may move his office to the suburbs and make fewer trips downtown.

He currentlytries to schedule his appointments on the same day within walking distance of each other, and then take transit into the city, but he says that's not working.

"It's just really difficult to do. When you're dealing with clients you have to work with their schedule too, it's not just my convenience," he said.

Calgary's prices are nothing compared to London, Tokyo and New York, where parking costsaround $800 a month, said Reading.

Calgary's downtown office space tight

The vacancy rate for office space in both downtown and suburban Calgary now sits at 1.5 per cent, down from 2.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2006.

Calgary, where demand is outstripping supply, also has the highest rents in Canada for prime downtown office space.

The vacancy rate forprime downtown space is just 0.2 per cent. That's lower than inTokyo, which traditionally has the lowest vacancy rate of any major city in the world, according to a report in June by CB Richard Ellis Limited.