Parkin, AWQAF Dubai to build new parking facility in Al Sabkha District

Parkin has teamed up with the Dubai Endowments and Minors’ Trust Foundation (AWQAF Dubai) to build a seven-storey barrierless smart parking facility with 350 parking spaces in the city’s Al Sabkha area.

AWQAF Dubai will finance the development of the parking facility under the deal, while Parkin will be responsible for managing, operating and maintaining the barrierless smart parking facility.

The parking facility will occupy an area that spans approximately 175,000 square feet (sqft), and a further 9,600 sqft will be dedicated to retail space on the ground floor, driving additional revenues for Parkin, the public parking operator said in a statement.

The partnership is projected to generate estimated cash flows of Dhs200m for AWQAF Dubai over a 25-year period. Once operational, it will also provide Parkin with an accretive return profile that will increase throughout the venture.

The construction of the parking facility is expected to commence in the second half of 2025, subject to planning approval. It is expected to take approximately two years to complete.

Founded in 2023, Parkin debuted on the Dubai Financial Markets in March after a $429m initial public offering that received a record amount of demand. It has a 49-year concession agreement with RTA to manage more than 200,000 paid parking spaces across Dubai.

The public parking operator has a monopoly on the city’s on- and off-street paid public parking market, as well as public multi-storey car parking facilities. It also operates some developer-owned parking facilities.

Parkin partnered with Majid Al Futtaim in October to introduce paid parking at three of its most popular malls: Mall of the Emirates, City Centre Deira and City Centre Mirdif.

The company is set to increase the parking fee to Dhs6 for ‘premium areas’ during peak hours from March 2025. The fee for premium parking spaces will be Dhs6 per hour from 8 am to 10 am and 4 pm to 8 pm. Other charges will be Dhs4 per hour for all other public-paid parking spaces.

With a market capitalisation of Dhs14.3bn as of December 11, 2024, Parkin registered 95 million parking transactions in the first nine months of the year. The company’s net profit increased 5 per cent to Dhs303.5m compared to Dhs287.9m a year ago.

Read: Dubai’s Parkin, Majid Al Futtaim to introduce paid parking at UAE malls