Property Owners Look at Deals on Self-Driving Cabs

CRE property owners have increasingly been getting involved with electric vehicle chargers to satisfy the needs of visitors and tenants. Now some are getting interested in different areas of high-tech transportation.

Vestar has announced a new partnership with driverless auto company Waymo — part of Google parent Alphabet. Vestar retail property Tempe Marketplace is offering “exclusive ride-share discounts” to all visitors with Arizona State University students getting a particular pith. They will get 25% off on their ride. There will be other assorted store discounts available to those using the cab service.

The specifics aren’t so important as much as what lies under them. Retail developments always have to consider transportation. They need to be conveniently close to the most likely shoppers, maybe having public transport options and sufficient parking. If consumers cannot easily get to a given location, they won’t spend their money.

This is a type of offering that reaches out on several levels. One is the attention to transportation, which is a must. Then there is a layer of saving money by attracting more of those who want to avoid driving and who never picked up the habit of using common forms of transportation.

Then there are attempts to invoke high-tech excitement and novelty through the technology play. Come see the future of mobility and see the wonder of a car that drives itself.

But appealing to novelty can bring unexpected problems as well. Late at night, a group of driverless Waymo (owned by Google parent Alphabet) robotaxis started honking at one another late at night in San Francisco, according to a local NBC station. This has happened more than once, typically around four or five in the morning as a number of taxis were driving into and out of a parking lot. Neighbors have been filming the events, documenting them for a growing online audience.

According to what a company spokesperson told the NBC station, “We’ve updated the software, so our electric vehicles should keep the noise down for our neighbors moving forward.” But the honking continued in an adjacent cul-de-sac. After which the company again said that it found another fix for the continuing problem.