Parking Updates | Nanchang Expands Urban Parking Capacity with “Above-and-Below-Ground” Solutions

　Expanding Capacity: An additional 120,000 parking spaces will be added each year.

　　Parking has long been a challenging, high‑profile, and pressing issue in urban management. On the one hand, vehicle numbers are growing rapidly: Nanchang currently has approximately 1.3 million registered motor vehicles, with an average daily increase of 300 cars and about 100,000 new vehicles added each year. On the other hand, there is a significant mismatch between parking supply and demand; the city’s total parking capacity stands at roughly 800,000 spaces, leaving a shortfall of 500,000 spaces when calculated on a 1:1 ratio. Historically, urban planning and design failed to incorporate parking spaces and facilities from a forward‑looking, development‑oriented perspective, resulting in substantial accumulated deficits in parking infrastructure, particularly in the older urban districts.

　　The Nanchang Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government attach great importance to parking‑lot development, advancing the “Beautiful Nanchang – Happy Home” environmental improvement initiative to enhance urban functions and quality, and incorporating parking‑lot construction into citywide projects that benefit the public. Nanchang has set a target of adding no fewer than 120,000 parking spaces annually, comprising 60,000 spaces at commercial facilities, 40,000 at public buildings, and 20,000 in public parking lots. To date, 313 new public parking lots with a total of 73,971 spaces have been completed.

　　Nanchang City has built the province’s largest underground mechanical multi‑level parking facility—the Hanhong Industrial Park Parking Lot in Qingshanhu District, with 3,376 parking spaces; the province’s tallest tower‑type mechanical multi‑level parking garage—on Tuanjie Road in Xihu District, a 26‑storey structure; and the province’s most intelligent automated multi‑level parking system—the Tianquan Shuidu Smart Multi‑Level Garage in Donghu District.

　　Among them, the Tuanjie Road multi‑level parking garage is located in Xihu District, the old urban area of Nanchang. Its main structure is a 26‑storey tower‑type multi‑level parking facility, with a total site area of 1,730.67 square meters and a building height of approximately 50 meters, making it the tallest parking tower in the province to date. According to reports, this tower‑style parking structure occupies only one‑fifth of the land area required by a conventional surface parking lot, resulting in significantly higher space utilization.

　　The Tuanjie Road multi‑storey car park is divided into four standard bays, each equipped with vertical‑lift mechanical parking systems. The parking levels range from the 2nd to the 26th floor, with the 2nd–20th floors designated for compact cars and the 21st–26th floors reserved for SUVs. The ground floor serves as the entrance and exit, while the top floor houses the equipment room. Each standard bay accommodates 50 parking spaces (two vehicles per level), for a total of 200 spaces across all four bays. The Tuanjie Road car park was also honored with the 2018 National Top Ten Most Beautiful Multi‑Storey Car Parks Award and the Best Supporting Facilities Award.

　　 Depth Expansion: Maximizing Land Use Efficiency by Developing Underground Space

　　Urban development should not be confined to “height” and “breadth”; it must also deepen, vigorously tapping underground space, promoting intensive and economical land use, and effectively addressing bottlenecks such as parking shortages, thereby fostering a more three-dimensional development framework.

　　The comprehensive underground space development and utilization project at Nanchang’s Old Zoo emphasizes an integrated “five-in-one” approach, effectively expanding the city’s underground infrastructure. According to reports, the project’s road network stretches from Xin Gongyuan Road (south gate of People’s Park) in the south to Fuzhou Road in the north, with a total length of 592.842 meters, including a 315-meter tunnel. The planned right-of-way is 10 meters wide, and the entire roadway lies within the Old Zoo grounds. In tandem with the zoo’s renovation and upgrading, the project includes three parking facilities: Bus Parking Lot No. 1, Civil Defense Parking Lot No. 2, and Public Parking Lot No. 3. Together, these parking areas cover 22,650 square meters and provide a total of 976 parking spaces. Specifically: Parking Lot No. 1 occupies 4,500 square meters and serves as a semi-underground bus terminal, accommodating 15 large buses and 2 medium-sized buses; Parking Lot No. 2 is an underground facility spanning 8,500 square meters over two levels, with a gross floor area of 17,000 square meters and 438 parking spaces; Parking Lot No. 3 covers 9,650 square meters, also with two underground levels, a gross floor area of 19,275 square meters, and 521 parking spaces.

　　The Nanchang Old Zoo Underground Space Comprehensive Development and Utilization Project is the city’s first initiative to integrate five major functions—traffic congestion mitigation, parking, urban green space, a public‑transport hub, and civil defense—into a single underground development. It is also the first project in Nanchang to be implemented in accordance with the “Administrative Measures for the Development and Utilization of Urban Underground Space in Nanchang,” and it plays a pivotal role as a model and catalyst for advancing underground space development throughout the city.

　　In the Honggutan New District, the Zhongshun Park Public Parking Lot project is the province’s first large-scale, single‑building public parking facility financed by private capital and developed using underground space. Covering a site area of 17,254.4 square meters with a total floor area of approximately 30,048 square meters, the project has a total investment of nearly RMB 300 million. Above ground, landscaped green spaces have been created, while two levels of automated parking are housed underground. Currently offering 1,007 parking spaces, the project will eventually expand to nearly 2,000 smart, multi‑level parking spots through the addition of mechanical parking systems, thereby alleviating parking shortages in the area and addressing challenges in traffic management.

　　 Preferential Policy: An annual 100 million yuan in awards and subsidies to encourage the construction of parking facilities.

　　How should parking facilities be planned and developed to better meet the public’s parking needs? Following the principles of “government leadership, market-driven operations, social participation, and public convenience,” Nanchang City has vigorously promoted the construction of public parking lots.

　　Careful planning starts with “early action.” In 2016, Nanchang City formulated the Three-Year Plan for Public Parking Lot Construction, adopting a scientific approach to planning, rational site layout, and phased implementation. In terms of parking‑lot planning, each urban district implements differentiated zoning to prevent mismatches between planned locations and actual construction, ensuring site selection is tailored to local conditions and precisely targeted. Emphasis is placed on capacity‑expansion strategies, maximizing the development and utilization of both above‑ground and underground spaces, and tapping into land resources in older urban areas. Priority is given to constructing multi‑level underground or surface parking facilities around areas where parking supply and demand are particularly acute, such as hospitals, schools, shopping malls, residential communities, and farmers’ markets. Public parking lots are also integrated into urban renewal and shantytown redevelopment projects, civil defense facilities, and new construction developments, while temporarily unused plots slated for development within one year or longer are repurposed as temporary parking areas.

　　Targeted measures are grounded in “breaking the deadlock.” Nanchang City has issued the “Implementation Opinions on Urban Parking Lot Construction,” supporting the industrialization of parking‑lot development and accelerating the construction of public parking facilities. To address the issue of land, urban infrastructure projects such as publicly funded parking lots—when they meet the criteria set out in the “Catalogue of Allocated Land”—may be allocated or transferred through negotiated agreements; alternatively, a “lease‑then‑transfer” approach may be adopted, encouraging land‑use right holders to invest in public parking facilities using their own land. To tackle funding challenges, the city encourages the involvement of social capital in parking‑lot development via PPP models, leasing, and joint‑venture operations. It has also introduced the “Management Measures for Reward‑Based Subsidies for Urban Parking‑Lot Projects in Nanchang,” providing differentiated incentives and subsidies based on parking‑lot type, with annual subsidy funds totaling RMB 100 million. To resolve implementation issues, Nanchang Municipal Public Utilities Investment Holding Group has been designated as the entity responsible for the investment, construction, operation, and management of state‑owned public parking lots. In addition, a series of policy measures have been rolled out, including exemptions and reductions in urban infrastructure配套 fees, as well as permission to develop up to 20% ancillary commercial space as part of such projects.

　　Exquisite development is grounded in practicality. Nanchang City has developed a smart parking system, establishing an intelligent parking management platform and a parking information service portal to achieve networked, intelligent management across the urban area, thereby enhancing the modernization and intelligence of parking facilities. The city has implemented staggered‑time and peak‑shift parking policies, leveraging price incentives to balance parking demand and encourage off‑peak usage. Additionally, it has promoted shared‑use models, encouraging government agencies, enterprises, and public institutions to open their parking lots during nighttime hours, thus boosting the utilization rate of parking spaces.