How Scotia Square uses EV charging to amp up the appeal of its parking facility

There are more than 1,700 parking spaces at Crombie REIT’s Scotia Square parkade in Halifax, serving many thousands of visitors each year who come to enjoy the shopping, dining, and entertainment on offer in the Scotia Square area and community.

While the parkade has offered EV charging since all the way back in 2015, increased demand saw a need for an expansion, which led to the installation of newer, smarter charging stations in 2023. Now, the parking facility’s charging stations are in ever-higher usage and demand, driving repeat business and long dwell times for visitors to the parkade and Scotia Square community. All this, it should be said, with minimal attention or intervention required by the team at Scotia Square managing the parking facilities.

EV charging and paid parking: a natural combination

Scotia Square is a community within Halifax that brings together quality spaces for work, shopping, dining, and (soon) living. Providing a convenient parking offering is key to ensuring this area gets the traffic it was built to attract.

With so many opportunities for members of the community—or those just visiting—to spend significant amounts of time in the area, there also comes a desire among the growing number of EV drivers to plug in. After all, the dwell time for a meal could exceed a couple of hours, and a day at the office likely involves a car sitting in a lot for anywhere from eight to ten.

The idea is that folks without access to charging at home or who just enjoy the flexibility of being able to plug in while at the office or out about town, will like having the option to plug in while their cars are parked.

That idea has been borne out. Since the initial installation of two charging stations at the property, expansions to four and then six charging stations have taken place. According to Ken Skinner, Manager of Parking Services for Crombie, 3-4 charging stations will be in use at any given time, and it’s quite common to see the full bank of six active at once, too. Future expansion, he says, will likely be needed in the next few years.

A great differentiator among parking facilities

In the world of parking, it can be a little difficult to stand out. Most people, after all, just want the most affordable option that is close to wherever it is they’re going. With EV charging, though, it does become possible for a parking plaza to stand out.

Public charging can be hit and miss—lots of drivers want to plug in at streetside chargers, and it can be a bit of a lottery for drivers who can’t be sure their preferred public option will be available. By providing EV charging and promoting it to drivers, though, Scotia Square’s parking facility becomes a compelling offering to EV drivers who need to plug in.

This added service not only attracts a growing demographic of environmentally conscious drivers but also encourages longer parking durations as vehicles charge, further increasing revenue per parking spot.

Maximizing ROI through strategic EV charging implementation

Because drivers are already expected to pay for access to the general parking services, there was skepticism about the idea of having additional fees for use of the charging stations. As it turns out, though, EV drivers are happy to pay them because of the convenience that they offer. Skinner noted that “people understand the value of having chargers onsite. It’s an additional charge on top of their parking fee, but the value is certainly there.”

This willingness to pay for charging services translates directly to improved ROI for the parking facility. And, because all the charging stations are networked and collect and transmit usage data back to the SWTCH admin dashboard available to Scotia Square, their team can:

• Refine their rates to achieve an optimal pricing strategy
• Refer to real-time and historical usage data to understand how often each charger is used and whether expansion to the charging offering is needed yet
• Quickly manage user access and billing when needed
• View live charger status and any maintenance needs that arise

With easy access to this information, the team at Scotia Square is empowered to make decisions about how best to offer charging services, as well as keep up with the financial side of their investment in EV charging.

Great EV charging, zero hassle for the Scotia Square team

For Scotia Square, EV charging is just one of many services on offer, and in a parkade that sees thousands of visitors each year, there’s little desire for an EV charging offering to eat into precious administrative time. Fortunately, the combination of the SWTCH platform and its support team ensures that the charging stations remain in great working order with little to no input required from the team at Scotia Square.

“You [SWTCH] do what you say you’ll do, and the team has been great to deal with,” Skinner said. “I’ve experienced all kinds of different parking equipment supply operators, and I can say you’re in the top 10%.”

In particular, Skinner points to the team at SWTCH remotely monitoring the status of Scotia Square’s charging stations as offering particular value. On the rare occasion when a charging station isn’t performing as it should, the SWTCH team reaches out proactively to ensure the team at Scotia Squarecan take action. They’ll also provide suggestions or advice for how to proceed.

“It makes a lot of sense to have this remote monitoring, and it saves us a lot of time,” Skinner says. “As your infrastructure scales up, it can sometimes be challenging to stay on top of everything right away. This way, if the problem can’t just be solved with a remote restart, we’re able to head over, cordon off the space with the defective charger, and start figuring out a solution with the SWTCH team right away.”

Beyond that, Skinner points to the admin dashboard in SWTCH OS as being a convenient tool. “It’s very helpful for ESG reports,” he says.

Ongoing investment in EV charging for a persistent advantage

Today, having a robust EV charging offering sets a parking facility apart. Long-term, as more drivers drive electric and desire or need convenient charging in public-facing environments like Scotia Square, having EV charging will become a necessity in the parking biz.

But funding programs for EV charging stations are beginning to wind down, and the costs of installing the stations, as well as the electrical work that is usually necessary to prepare a site for hosting EV charging, will only get more expensive. As a result, the businesses that are playing catch-up will have a heftier bill to contend with at the end of the day.

For Scotia Square’s part, meanwhile, discussions are ongoing about potential expansions to other strategic locations around the community, including dedicated locations near the food court and the mall. Finding new ways to deliver convenient access to charging in the places people spend the most time will deliver a great deal of value in the years to come.