Eric Roseman

Everyone is talking about what Cybercab and autonomous vehicles means for the future of transportation. I want to talk about what it means for real estate. Here is a site plan of a 76 unit apartment project we just finished in Dallas. It is leasing up now. Look at the site plan. Half the land is surface parking. That is how many small(ish) apartment buildings have been designed for decades. Cities used to require it. Many, including Dallas, are now getting rid of parking minimums. But that does not change much on its own. We will keep building as much parking as our renters demand. So will every other developer. Renters bring cars (especially in Texas). So the parking stays until the cars change. Here is what we did differently. The building and the parking lot are two legally separate tax parcels. If the parking is no longer needed, we can build on the lot without touching the building. On this site that means another 70 to 80 apartments. No new land. No acquisition cost. Same property, roughly double the units. And you may not even need robotaxis to get there. You just need cars smart enough to park themselves. Door to door. Bumper to bumper. Drop me off under the porte cochere, then go park yourself in a parking structure in a cheaper part of town. Half the parking field disappears right there. Now run that across a whole city. Every surface lot. Every oversized parking field. Every empty corner of a multifamily site. Each one becomes a development opportunity if the need for parking change drastically. More housing. Less asphalt. More housing where people want to live. Waymo, Zoox, and Robotaxi arriving in Dallas matters more than most people think. Robot cars do not just change how people move. They may change what we build and where it is built.