Mechanical Parking Still Wins on Constrained Sites Despite Tariffs

For developers weighing parking options on a constrained site, the conclusion hasn’t changed: mechanical parking still recovers space that a conventional ramp structure can’t, and that recovered space still outweighs any single line item on a quote, tariffs included. That’s the core message from KLAUS Multiparking America, the U.S. subsidiary of the German manufacturer, as the industry grapples with new trade realities. Since July 2026, imports from the European Union have carried a 15% all-inclusive tariff ceiling under the new EU-US trade framework, with steel and aluminum content continuing to carry a separate 50% Section 232 duty on top of that ceiling. While KLAUS’s systems are assembled domestically from German-made components, they still face tariff exposure—but according to Christopher Tiessen, President/CEO of KLAUS Multiparking America, that exposure doesn’t flip the comparison between mechanical and conventional parking; it simply means the comparison must be run honestly on both sides.

Tiessen argues that developers who default to conventional ramp structures to avoid tariffs are making the wrong read on the numbers. Conventional cast-in-place or precast structures rely heavily on structural steel and were already the more expensive path per space before any tariff entered the conversation, because they require far more built area for ramps, drive aisles, and circulation that mechanical systems don’t need. With conventional structured parking running at a national median of roughly $33,300 per space—a figure that already reflects climbing steel, concrete, and labor costs—the structural advantage of mechanical parking remains substantial. Tiessen notes that even with a tariff added to KLAUS’s side of the ledger, the math a developer runs still starts with how many units or how much additional program they can fit on a constrained site. KLAUS’s approach has been to quote tariff exposure as a transparent, itemized cost rather than folding it into an opaque total, so developers can run the comparison with real numbers instead of assumptions. “Trade policy is going to keep evolving,” Tiessen says. “Our job is to make sure that doesn’t change the answer to the question that actually matters: what gets the most usable space out of the site they have.”