You lease land or parking for a robotaxi depot the same way you would lease a fleet yard, with three extra layers: power-capacity clauses, charging-improvement ownership, and phasing tied to the operator's vehicle ramp. The three common structures are a ground lease (tenant builds, you collect rent), a build-to-suit (you fund improvements for higher rent), and a revenue share (you participate in charging and staging income). No robotaxi operator publishes lease rates; deals are priced against fleet-yard and industrial outdoor storage comps in the same submarket, which ran about $8,000 to $20,000 per acre per month in 2026 for 2- to 5-acre yards. Wins Parking represents owners through structure, negotiation, and ongoing management.
5–10 yr
Typical NNN term on fleet-yard leases that depot deals are benchmarked against
Who Is Leasing Depots Right Now — and Under Whose Name
The tenant universe in September 2026 is wider than the four robotaxi brands. Tesla leases in its own name; permit filings for its Austin Cybercab charging hub on St Elmo Road list the project under Tesla Auto Cab and describe roughly 80 wireless charging stalls plus 48 V4 charger posts (Tesla Oracle, August 19, 2026). Waymo signs some leases directly — a full-building lease near Tampa's airport in June 2026 and three Washington, D.C. depots this summer — but hands day-to-day depot operations to partners in several markets.
Those partners are important counterparties. Avis Budget Group is Waymo's fleet operations partner in Dallas, responsible for infrastructure, vehicle readiness, maintenance, and depot operations. Moove holds the same role in Phoenix and Miami, including facilities and charging infrastructure. Uber has secured a 50,000-square-foot Houston depot and a separate charging pitstop for its Lucid–Nuro service launching in 2027 (Business Wire, June 17, 2026). Zoox, now charging fares in Las Vegas and expanding to San Francisco, Austin, and Miami, runs its own facilities.
For an owner, the practical lesson is to underwrite the entity that signs. A lease with a public fleet-services company carries different credit, insurance, and assignment questions than one with a robotaxi developer's operating subsidiary. Ask for the parent guaranty when the signer is a subsidiary, and ask how the operator's agreement with its fleet partner allocates facility obligations.
Ground Lease: The Simplest Structure
Under a ground lease the operator or its partner takes the land or lot as-is, funds all improvements — grading, paving, fencing, lighting, utility service, chargers or inductive pads, and any building — and pays you rent for the term. You have almost no operating role and no capital exposure. The trade-off is that rent reflects land value rather than the improved facility, and the tenant will want the term length and renewal options to justify its own investment.
Ground leases for fleet yards typically run five to ten years with one or more renewal options, on a triple-net basis where the tenant covers taxes, insurance, and maintenance (The Cauble Group, 2026). Robotaxi tenants often ask for early-termination rights tied to regulatory or market exit; resist a bare termination right, or price it with a termination fee that recovers your lost rent and any restoration cost.
Improvement ownership should be explicit. Utility-side equipment usually belongs to the utility. Customer-side switchgear, conduit, and foundations are the valuable long-lived pieces; negotiate that they remain with the property at expiration rather than being removed. Proprietary hardware such as Tesla's inductive pads will almost certainly stay with the tenant, so structure the site so that the make-ready underneath them can serve any successor.
Build-to-Suit: Trading Capital for Higher Rent
In a build-to-suit, you deliver a finished or partly finished depot to the operator's specification and charge rent that amortizes your investment. Owners choose this when they have access to construction capital at a lower cost than the tenant's hurdle rate, or when the tenant wants to move fast without a balance-sheet commitment. The operator provides the program — stall count, charging mix, power, building size — and you deliver it.
The rent math is straightforward: land rent plus an improvement rent equal to the improvement cost multiplied by an agreed yield, typically negotiated against the tenant's credit and the term. Because electrical infrastructure runs 30 to 60 percent of a fast-charging project according to NREL deployment data, most of your capital ends up in switchgear, transformers, conduit, and concrete — assets that hold value for any future EV or fleet tenant.
Protect yourself with a detailed scope exhibit, a change-order process, milestone approvals, and a rent commencement date that does not slide indefinitely if the utility is late. Because utility service upgrades for depots commonly take 6 to 18 months from application, negotiate who bears delay risk when the utility, not the owner, is the cause.
Revenue Share and Owner-Operated Depots
A revenue share replaces some or all fixed rent with a percentage of the depot's charging, staging, or service income. It fits owners who believe in the site's long-term utilization and want upside, and it fits operators who prefer variable cost during a ramp. The obvious risk is the ramp itself: Tesla's Austin Cybercab authorization stands at 45 vehicles, and Waymo's Miami depot was still under construction in September 2026 with an interim 62-space site (The Road to Autonomy, September 11, 2026).
The strongest version is a hybrid: a base rent that covers your debt service and taxes plus a participation above a utilization threshold. Define the revenue base precisely — energy sales, per-stall staging fees, cleaning fees — and require audit rights and monthly reporting.
Owner-operated depots go one step further: you or your parking operator run the facility and sell charging and staging to fleets under service agreements rather than leases. That can serve multiple operators at once in metros like Austin or Phoenix where several fleets overlap. Wins Parking's robotaxi depot management service is built for this model.
How Rent Is Benchmarked When No Operator Publishes Rates
Robotaxi operators do not disclose what they pay for depots, and public filings rarely break out rent. Brokers and owners therefore price depot deals against the closest analog: industrial outdoor storage and fleet-parking yards. Those assets are underwritten per usable acre or per stall, with 2026 benchmarks of roughly $8,000 to $20,000 per acre per month for 2- to 5-acre yards and $0.50 to $2.00 per square foot per month depending on market and tenant (The Cauble Group, July 2026). Port-adjacent and infill yards trade above that range; rural yards below it.
Depot sites earn a premium over generic yards when they bring what operators cannot easily buy: available power, infill or airport-adjacent location, entitlements already in place, and secure fencing. They earn a discount when the operator must fund a long utility upgrade or when the term is short. Present your site with a utility capacity letter and a zoning confirmation, and you negotiate from the top of the comp range rather than the bottom.
Per-stall pricing is also common and easier to phase. If a concept plan shows 120 pull-through charging stalls at full build, a lease can price the first 40 stalls at commencement and step up as phases are delivered, keeping rent aligned with the tenant's fleet growth while guaranteeing your minimum.
Power-Capacity and Utility Clauses
Power is the clause set that distinguishes a depot lease from an ordinary yard lease. Specify the delivered service capacity in kilowatts or megawatts, the voltage, who applies for and pays the utility, who owns the customer-side transformer and switchgear, and what happens if the utility delivers less capacity or later than planned. Tie rent commencement to a defined milestone — for example, energization of the primary service — with a long-stop date after which either party has remedies.
Address expansion capacity explicitly. A tenant who wants an option to add 3 MW in year three needs the owner to reserve space for a second transformer pad and conduit routes; the owner needs the tenant to pay for that capacity if reserved. Address demand-charge responsibility and metering — usually the tenant holds the utility account under a ground lease, while in a build-to-suit or owner-operated model the owner may hold it and rebill.
If a utility make-ready program is available, decide who applies and who benefits. Programs frequently fund utility-side and sometimes customer-side infrastructure in exchange for minimum operating periods, often five years for public-facing sites in programs such as Con Edison's PowerReady. Those obligations should flow through to whichever party holds the equipment.
Zoning, Permitting, and Use Clauses
Because few codes name robotaxi depots, the permitted-use clause should describe the activities — storage and staging of fleet vehicles, EV charging, cleaning, light maintenance, and 24-hour operations — rather than relying on a label. Make entitlement a condition precedent with a clear allocation of who pursues it, who pays, and what happens if it is denied or conditioned in a way that changes the program.
Require the tenant to comply with lighting, noise, stormwater, and hazardous-materials rules, including washwater handling from cleaning operations and any battery-storage fire-code requirements if the tenant adds on-site storage to manage demand charges. Provide for reasonable landlord approval of site-plan changes, especially anything that affects drainage, access, or the structure of a garage.
Include a cooperation clause for permits and a right for the owner to review all filings. It is common for operators to run entitlements through the fleet partner or a consultant; the owner still needs to know what conditions attach to the property.
Tenant Improvements, Maintenance, and Restoration
Define who maintains what. Pavement, striping, fencing, lighting, and drainage are usually tenant responsibilities under a triple-net ground lease; the owner may retain structural responsibility in a garage. Charging equipment is the tenant's under a ground lease and the owner's under a build-to-suit, so the maintenance and uptime obligations follow ownership.
Restoration is where depots differ from yards. Trenching, transformer pads, charger foundations, and inductive pads embedded in concrete are expensive to remove and, in most cases, valuable to leave. Negotiate a restoration standard that keeps generic make-ready in place and requires removal only of proprietary equipment and any hazardous materials, with the site returned in safe, paved, and secured condition.
Insurance should cover the specific risks: high-voltage equipment, vehicle storage, autonomous test operations, and cyber-physical incidents. Ask for the tenant's certificates naming the owner as additional insured and for waivers of subrogation appropriate to the equipment ownership split.
Exit, Assignment, and Reversion
Assignment rights need particular care because the robotaxi industry is reorganizing around fleet partners. Permit assignment to affiliates and to fleet-services partners of comparable credit, but require notice and continued guaranty from the original credit party. Prohibit assignment to unrelated users that would change the use from a depot to general storage without owner consent.
At expiration, reversion terms decide the residual value of your investment. Under a ground lease, insist that the make-ready reverts to the property; under a build-to-suit, confirm that the tenant cannot strip switchgear or transformers you funded. Build in a purchase option or right of first offer if the tenant wants long-term control, priced at fair market value with the improvements considered.
Finally, plan for the successor use. A power-ready, fenced, paved site near an airport can re-lease to another robotaxi operator, a delivery fleet, a charging network, or a logistics user. Every clause that keeps the make-ready generic and in place protects that optionality.
Wins Parking's role in a depot lease — before, during, and after signing
Most owners have never negotiated a lease with power clauses, charging improvements, and fleet phasing in it. We bring the design, construction, and operating perspective to the table.
Design
Concept plan that anchors the lease exhibit
A stall-by-stall depot layout, charging mix, and phasing plan becomes the scope exhibit operators respond to and the basis for per-stall or per-phase rent.
If you fund improvements, we deliver service upgrades, transformers, trenching, foundations, and site work as one accountable scope with milestone approvals tied to rent commencement.
Lease compliance monitoring, improvement inspections, and reporting for ground leases; full charging, staging, and access operations for owner-operated or revenue-share depots.
Straight from the people living it — cited to the communities where operators, installers, and owners compare notes.
“Owners fixate on the rent number and give away the improvements. In a depot deal the switchgear, transformer, and conduit are the asset — negotiate that they stay with the land and you have a re-leasable site no matter what happens to the first tenant.”
Industrial outdoor storage is leased, priced, and underwritten per acre rather than per square foot of building, with fleet parking often quoted per stall — which is exactly why depot rents are benchmarked against yard comps rather than warehouse or retail rents.
Work the steps in order; each one strengthens your position on rent and protects the site's long-term value.
1
Assemble the site package
Survey, title, zoning confirmation, environmental status, utility capacity letter, and a depot concept plan with phasing. This package is what puts you at the top of the comp range.
2
Pull yard and fleet-parking comps
Benchmark per-acre and per-stall rents for industrial outdoor storage and fleet yards in your submarket and adjust for your power, location, and entitlement advantages.
3
Pick the structure
Choose ground lease, build-to-suit, or hybrid revenue share based on your capital, risk tolerance, and how many fleets operate nearby.
4
Issue a letter of intent with power and phasing terms
State capacity, commencement triggers, phase schedule, improvement ownership, and term and renewal options up front so the lease drafting does not reopen them.
5
Negotiate credit and assignment
Secure a guaranty from the credit parent, permit assignment only to affiliates or comparable fleet partners, and keep the original credit on the hook.
6
Lock restoration and reversion
Generic make-ready stays; proprietary hardware goes; the site is returned paved, safe, and secured. Add a right of first offer if the tenant wants long-term control.
7
Set up ongoing oversight
Assign someone — in-house or Wins Parking — to inspect improvements, track compliance, and manage the utility and program obligations through the term.
Estimate lease income for your lot or parcel
Parking Revenue Calculator
Model gross and net parking revenue for a managed lot or garage. Compares against a status-quo baseline (55% collection efficiency, 22% enforcement leakage) and estimates payback against onboarding costs.
52000
0.5x8x
$0.5$20
1h24h
30%100%
0%40%
01500
$25/mo$800/mo
Daily Gross
$2,372
Monthly Gross
$71K
Annual Gross
$854K
Annual Net (post 12% mgmt)
$751K
Status Quo Baseline vs Managed (Annual Gross)
Status quo (55% eff, 22% leakage)$482K
Managed (88% eff, 6% leakage)$854K
Annual uplift vs status quo: $372K
Estimated payback: 1 mo
A 120-space lot at 3.2x daily turn, $4.50/hour over 12 paid hours, 88% collection efficiency, and 6% enforcement leakage — plus 35 monthly permits at $195/mo — generates $854K/yr gross and $751K/yr net after a typical 12% management share. That is roughly $372K/yr above a status-quo unmanaged baseline.
Operators do not publish depot rents. Deals are benchmarked against fleet-yard and industrial outdoor storage comps in the same submarket, which in 2026 ran about $8,000 to $20,000 per acre per month for 2- to 5-acre yards and $0.50 to $2.00 per square foot per month, according to The Cauble Group. Power-ready, infill, and airport-adjacent sites with entitlements in place command the upper end; sites needing long utility upgrades or offering short terms price lower.
In a ground lease the tenant funds every improvement and pays land rent; you have no capital exposure and a lower rent. In a build-to-suit you fund some or all of the depot — service, transformers, conduit, foundations, fencing, a building — and charge an improvement rent on top of land rent that amortizes your investment. Build-to-suit yields more but requires construction capital and a detailed scope exhibit.
Fleet-yard leases that depot deals are modeled on typically run five to ten years on a triple-net basis with renewal options. Operators investing in high-power infrastructure generally want longer terms; owners should pair a long term with a creditworthy guaranty and clear improvement-ownership and restoration terms rather than accepting a short deal with termination rights.
It varies. Tesla has leased its Austin Cybercab charging hub in its own name. Waymo signs some leases directly but uses Avis Budget Group in Dallas and Moove in Phoenix and Miami to operate depots. Uber has secured depots for its Lucid–Nuro program. Underwrite whichever entity signs and ask for a parent guaranty if it is a subsidiary.
Delivered capacity in kW or MW and voltage, who applies for and pays the utility, ownership of customer-side transformers and switchgear, rent commencement tied to energization with a long-stop date, expansion capacity reservations and who pays for them, which party holds the utility account and demand-charge responsibility, and flow-through of any make-ready program obligations.
Let them remove proprietary hardware such as inductive pads and networked chargers, but negotiate that generic make-ready — conduit, foundations, switchgear, and customer-side transformers — stays with the property. That infrastructure is the most expensive part of a charging site and is what makes the site re-leasable to another fleet or charging tenant.
Yes, but structure it as a hybrid: base rent covering debt service and taxes plus participation above a utilization threshold, with a precisely defined revenue base and audit rights. Pure revenue share exposes you to the operator's ramp, which can be slow — Tesla's Austin Cybercab authorization is 45 vehicles and Waymo's Miami depot was still under construction in September 2026.
Most codes treat depots as vehicle storage, fleet parking, commercial parking, or light industrial with accessory charging. Confirm whether the use is permitted by right or needs a conditional use permit, and address 24-hour operation, outdoor storage, lighting, and stormwater. Make entitlement a condition precedent in the lease with clear cost and timing responsibility.
We prepare the concept plan and power study that become the lease exhibits, advise on structure and clause sets, deliver build-to-suit improvements if you fund them, and then either monitor tenant compliance as the owner's representative or operate the depot outright for owner-operated and revenue-share deals.
Get help structuring a depot lease
Tell us about the property and any operator interest you have received. We will outline the structure, the clause set, and the rent benchmark that fit your site.
