Hoisting an auctioneer’s mallet, Rob Nord started the bidding Thursday evening by asking who in the room had not been to an auction before.
About a dozen people raised their hands, playing nicely into Nord’s punch line: “See how easy it is? That’s all you have to do to buy a parking space tonight.”
The action was soon under way. “I’ve got $17,500,” Nord said. “Give me $18,000, or do you want to continue parking on the street? OK, $18,000 from the gentleman in the back row. Can I have $18,500? … Eighteen five. Back to you, sir, like Ping-Pong.” Eventually the space sold for $21,500.
Parking is such a hot a commodity in downtown Chicago that 23 spaces in two coveted locations were auctioned–Going once, going twice, sold!–to the highest bidders. The spaces sold for a total of about $750,000, according to Rick Levin & Associates Inc., which managed the auction.
Mimicking the bidding wars for fine art and antiques at auctions conducted by the Sotheby’s and Christie’s auction houses, about 60 people showed up at the East Bank Club to pick up their own little piece of concrete paradise in the developer’s parking-closeout auction.
Rick Levin, whose real estate firm arranged the auction on behalf of building developers, said the atmosphere at his public sales for parking spaces is more low-key than at auctions where millions of dollars trade hands. Still, Levin has auctioned off a downtown parking space for about $90,000, he said.
Levin, 40, has auctioned parking spaces for as little as $8,000 in a building near Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios, to as much as $90,000 each in an exclusive building at Chestnut Street and Michigan Avenue.
Levin said his auctions succeed because “people are in love with their cars.”
One customer bought five spaces at different downtown spots so he would have his own space close to just about anywhere he parked in the Loop, Levin said.
While downtown parking spaces can sell for more than the price of a modest home, the market to buy parking spaces here is nowhere near as out of control as in Boston, New York and a few other cities.
