Kinney System Returns

Kinney System Inc., one of the largest operators of parking lots in the United States, has concrete plans to re-enter a lucrative market it drove away from seven years ago--Southern California.

New York-based Kinney returned to Los Angeles this month with the purchase of KinPark, a privately owned parking business here that manages about 45 parking lots in an area stretching from the San Fernando Valley to Long Beach. Kinney, a public company whose stock is traded over-the-counter, once owned, and later spun off, KinPark.

Kinney’s return to the Southland comes as a current explosion of high-rise office construction in Orange County and other outlying areas of Los Angeles is accompanied by an increase in paid rather than free parking. Clearly the company hopes to cash in on the boom.

“This acquisition establishes (Kinney) as a significant factor in the parking business in Southern California, and we will use it as a base to expand our operations on the West Coast,” Kinney Chairman Daniel P. Katz said.

KinPark began in 1967 as the California division of Kinney System. Despite the Southland’s renown as the car-culture capital of the world, Kinney spun off the unit into a private operation in 1978. Then, on Nov. 1, KinPark was repurchased by its former corporate parent for an undisclosed amount.

Company officials say the purchase will not affect KinPark’s 200 employees. In addition to the lots that it now manages in Los Angeles, Kinney owns, leases or manages about 200 additional lots in 10 states and the District of Columbia.