Nanchang expands urban parking capacity by building both aboveground and underground facilities.

Urban parking is a hot topic in today’s society, and for many car owners, the biggest headache is finding a place to park. In Nanchang, efforts have been made on multiple fronts—planning, expanding existing facilities, and adding new parking spaces— By tapping into both above‑ground and underground spaces, we are expanding public parking capacity, striving to add no fewer than 120,000 new parking spaces each year to effectively alleviate the city’s parking shortage.

Expand scale: Add new capacity every year. 120,000 parking spaces

　　Parking has long been a challenging, high‑profile, and pressing issue in urban management. On the one hand, vehicle numbers are growing rapidly; at present, Nanchang City’s motor vehicle ownership stands at approximately… 1.3 million vehicles, with an average daily increase of 300 vehicles and approximately 100,000 new vehicles added each year. On the other hand, there is a significant imbalance between parking supply and demand: Nanchang City has roughly 800,000 parking spaces in total, which, based on a 1:1 ratio, leaves a shortfall of 500,000 spaces. In the past, urban planning and design failed to incorporate parking spaces and parking facilities from a forward-looking, development‑oriented perspective, resulting in substantial historical deficits in parking infrastructure, particularly in the old city districts.

　　The Nanchang Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government attach great importance to parking lot construction and are actively promoting it. The “Beautiful Nanchang, Happy Home” environmental improvement project is focused on enhancing the city’s functions and quality, integrating parking‑lot development into the citywide initiative to benefit residents. Nanchang has set a target of adding no fewer than 120,000 parking spaces annually, comprising 60,000 spaces in commercial complexes, 40,000 in public‑service facilities, 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 largest underground mechanical multi‑level parking facility in the province, located in the Hanhong Industrial Park in Qingshanhu District, with a capacity of… spaces. 3,376 units; the 26‑story tower‑type automated multi‑storey parking garage on Tuanjie Road in Xihu District, the province’s tallest; and the Tianquan Shuidu intelligent multi‑storey parking facility in Donghu District, the province’s most advanced.

Among them, the Tuanjie Road Multi‑Level Parking Garage is located in Xihu District, the old urban area of Nanchang City, with a predominantly above‑ground structural design. The 26‑story tower‑type automated parking structure covers a total site area of 1,730.67 square meters and stands approximately 50 meters tall, making it the tallest parking tower in the province to date. According to reports, this tower‑style parking facility occupies only one-fifth of the footprint required by a conventional surface parking lot, resulting in significantly higher space utilization.

Unity Road Multi-Story Parking Garage Section The four standard parking facilities all utilize vertical‑lift mechanical parking systems, with parking levels ranging from 2 to 26. Levels 2 through 20 accommodate passenger cars, while levels 21 through 26 are designated for SUVs. The ground floor serves as the garage entrance and exit, and the top floor houses the equipment room. Each standard facility offers 50 parking spaces (two per level), for a total of 200 spaces across the four facilities. The Tuanjie Road Parking Lot 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 cannot be confined to In addition to “height” and “breadth,” we must also deepen our efforts, vigorously tap underground space, use land intensively and efficiently, and effectively address bottlenecks such as parking shortages, thereby forging a more three-dimensional development framework.

The comprehensive development and utilization project for the underground space of the Old Zoo in Nanchang City stands out. The “five-in-one” approach effectively expands underground space. According to the reporter, the comprehensive development and utilization project for the Old Zoo’s underground area encompasses a road network that 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—of which 315 meters are tunnel sections. The planned right-of-way width is 10 meters, and the entire roadway lies within the grounds of the Old Zoo. In conjunction with the zoo’s renovation and upgrading, the project includes three parking facilities: Bus Depot No. 1, Civil Defense Parking Lot No. 2, and Public Parking Lot No. 3. The combined parking area covers 22,650 square meters and provides 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 Area, the Zhongshun Park Public Parking Lot project is the largest single‑structure public parking facility in the province, funded by private capital and built utilizing underground space. The site covers an area of… With a land area of 17,254.4 square meters and a total floor area of approximately 30,048 square meters, the project boasts a total investment of nearly RMB 300 million. Above ground, it features landscaped green spaces, while underground it includes a two‑level smart parking garage that currently offers 1,007 parking spaces. By adding automated parking systems, the facility will expand to nearly 2,000 intelligent, multi‑level parking spots, helping alleviate parking shortages in the area and enhancing traffic management.

Preferential policy: annually RMB 100 million in incentive and subsidy funds to encourage the construction of parking facilities.

　　How should parking facilities be planned and developed to better meet the parking needs of residents? Nanchang City, in accordance with… Adhering to the principles of “government leadership, market-driven operation, social participation, and public convenience,” we are vigorously advancing the development of public parking facilities.

Carefully planned and firmly grounded “Early.” In 2016, Nanchang City formulated the “Three-Year Plan for Public Parking Lot Construction,” adopting a scientific planning approach, 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‑specific, precision‑driven deployment. The plan emphasizes capacity‑expansion through underutilized potential, intensifying the development and use 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 strained, 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.

Precision-based policy implementation “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 expansion 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 can be adopted. Land users are also encouraged to leverage their own land to invest in and build public parking facilities. To tackle funding challenges, the city is promoting the involvement of social capital in parking‑lot construction 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. Finally, to streamline implementation, 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 these projects.

Rooted in Exquisite Construction “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 parking management across the urban area, thereby enhancing the modernization and intelligence of parking facilities. The city implements staggered‑time and staggered‑peak parking policies, leveraging price incentives to regulate parking demand and encourage off‑peak usage. Additionally, it promotes shared‑use models, encouraging government agencies, enterprises, and public institutions to open their parking lots during nighttime hours, thus improving the utilization rate of parking spaces.