zip cars - the hottest thing on 4 wheels

Here's an interesting piece from yesterday's New York Post - detailing the newest trend in real estate: zip cars! My parter and I were members when zip car first launched in the city, and although car availabilities were shoddy at best during the beginning, the company has blossomed into quite a cool business.

Unfortunately, Metrostop and their planned fleet of Zip Car Toyota Prius's was not mentioned in the article. What a bummer! In case you didn't know - Zip Cars will be available to Metrostop residents when the building opens next spring. Anyway, here's the piece below - and all you Metrostop owners can sit back and bask in the glow of being right on-trend. Enjoy:

ZIP-ZIP-HOORAY!
BUYERS AT NEW BUILDINGS IN MANHATTAN AND BEYOND WILL BE ABLE TO SHARE CARS

By LISA KEYS

July 26, 2007 -- Forget marble bathrooms (boring), spas (whatever) or concierge services (yawn) - Zipcar is the latest amenity being unveiled at many of the area’s newest developments.

The car-sharing service - which boasts some 45,000 members in the New York City area alone - is teaming up with developers around the boroughs and beyond to bring its rent-by-the-hour-or-day cars to a slew of new buildings. Just this week, Zipcar announced a partnership with Equity Residential, owners of 608 properties around the country.

The company’s New Jersey properties, such as The Landings at Port Imperial and Jersey City’s The Pier, will have Zipcars parked on-site. Residents living in Equity Residential’s Manhattan buildings (such as Trump Place and Hudson Crossing on West 37th Street) will have to walk to the nearest Zipcar parking lot. But regardless of where they live, all residents, should they choose to join Zipcar - which has a membership rates starting at $50 (plus a $25 application fee) with car-rental rates from around $10 an hour and $69 a day, with insurance and gas included - will receive a $75 credit.

While this is the first time Zipcar has partnered with a real-estate company on a national level, such cooperation is not new. Zipcar’s first real-estate partnership began in 2004, with two vehicles parked on-site at Peter Cooper Village/Stuyvesant Town. Today, residents receive a discounted membership rate of $20 and have access to eight cars.

As new developments rise faster than Lindsay Lohan’s blood-alcohol level, the phenomenon has spread.

“Developers have recognized Zipcar as a solution to some of their parking and congestion problems,” says Julian Espiritu, the Manhattan-based regional vice president of Zipcar. “Plus, they can sell this program as an amenity to their residents.”

Existing buildings that have added Zipcar as an amenity include City Lights in Long Island City and Waterside Plaza on FDR Drive. Increasingly, however, Zipcar is pairing up with developers in order to include Zipcar parking spaces from the ground up.

“Typically, in an urban environment, parking areas are located in or under a structure,” says Espiritu. “We’re eventually going to park there anyway, so it’s a great opportunity for us to market our services to that building.”

Recent and upcoming developments with on-site Zipcars include the Kalahari in Harlem, Riverhouse in Battery Park City, the Esperanza in Asbury Park, N.J. (which will feature Zipcar Jaguars) and many Brooklyn properties being marketed by the Developer’s Group, including the Aurora in Williamsburg and One Brooklyn Bridge Park. (Taking the Zipcar-as-marketing-tool trend a bit further, last fall the Developers Group offered prospective buyers free Zipcar use for shuttling between nine open houses in Brooklyn and Queens.)

“New Yorkers, who are famous for not having a love affair with their cars, actually have a secret yearning for a car,” says Adrienne Albert, national director at the Marketing Directors, who is marketing Jersey City’s Beacon and Trump developments, which will offer Zipcars. “New Yorkers may not use it in everyday commuting, but they sure love the car experience.”