Parcel Lockers for High-Rise Apartment Towers (200+ Lots)

“We are a high-rise with 200, 400 or 600 apartments, and the concierge desk is buried in parcels.” A tower has the most to gain from parcel lockers and the most to get wrong. The questions change at this scale: how many banks, where to put them, how to survive the November–December peak, what happens to overflow, and how to keep couriers out of the lifts. This page is about those decisions. For approvals and funding, see the strata guide.

Count first, then plan banks

Get a week of real data from the concierge log or a tally sheet: parcels per day, by rough size. Then:

Cells ≈ parcels per day × average days waiting × 1.3

Parcels a day	Days waiting	Cells, roughly
40	1	52
80	1	104
120	1.5	234

Each bank has one courier touchscreen. Once a bank passes about 80 cells, couriers start queueing at the morning peak, so split into two or more banks with their own screens.

Where the banks go

• Ground-floor lobby: most visible, but lobbies in towers are often short of wall space.
• Loading dock: where most couriers arrive with trolleys. A bank here keeps cartons out of the lobby.
• Car park levels near the lift core: residents collect on the way up. Check signal and egress (basement guide).
• Separate banks by tower or lift zone in multi-tower sites, so residents do not cross the podium to collect.

Avoid banks on every residential floor. They put couriers in the lifts, which is the traffic most towers want to cut.

Surviving the peak

November and December bring Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas, and parcel volumes jump. Plan for it:

1. Size with headroom. The 1.3 factor covers ordinary peaks; very busy buildings may want more large cells.
2. Shorten the collection limit during the peak, with daily reminders.
3. Use overflow deliberately. When no suitable cell is free, the courier marks the parcel “left with the building”. The concierge stores it and the resident is told where it is.
4. Watch the dashboard. The portal shows how many cells are occupied, and which parcels are oldest.

Overflow and the concierge

In a tower, the concierge is part of the system, not replaced by it:

• Oversize, signature-required and damaged parcels go to the desk, and are logged in the same portal.
• The desk can load parcels into lockers after hours, so residents still collect 24/7.
• Residents get the same kind of message whether a parcel is in a locker or at the desk.

Lift traffic and courier time

Every courier who delivers at a ground-floor bank instead of an apartment door is one less trip in the lifts. In a tower with move-ins and removalists booking the service lift, that matters. Ask building management to direct couriers to the bank, and give regular drivers time-limited codes for the dock door so they do not wait for the desk.

Rough cost

A small bank of about 10 cells with a courier touchscreen typically comes in at a few thousand dollars, roughly A$3,000–7,000 ex GST. A building system of 50–100 cells is roughly A$12,000–30,000 ex GST. On top of that there is a flat monthly software fee of around A$150 per building, with no per-parcel or resident fees. Delivery and installation are quoted per site, and your quote fixes the price.

Large towers often need more than one building system, plus the cabling to reach a dock or car-park bank. Software is per building, not per bank.

A high-rise checklist

• ☐ One week of parcel counts, with rough sizes
• ☐ Cells calculated with peak headroom
• ☐ Number of banks and positions (lobby, dock, car park, tower zones)
• ☐ Overflow procedure with the concierge
• ☐ Peak-season collection limit and reminders
• ☐ Courier access to the dock and the banks
• ☐ Resident directory import and a process for move-ins and move-outs

Where this is the wrong answer

• There is no space for enough cells. A bank that is always full sends most parcels to the desk anyway. Fix the space problem first, or start with a parcel room plus a smaller bank for after-hours collection.
• The building wants staff to hand over every parcel as a service. Lockers remove that interaction. Some premium buildings prefer to keep it.
• Most deliveries are oversize. Furniture and appliance deliveries do not fit any cell. Lockers help only with the parcel share.

Related situations

• Apartment lobby parcel lockers
• Basement car park parcel lockers
• Build-to-rent parcel lockers, if the tower is operator-run
• Refrigerated grocery lockers, for towers with heavy grocery delivery

Frequently asked questions

How many parcel lockers does a 300-apartment tower need?

It depends on parcels, not apartments. Count deliveries for a typical week, multiply the daily figure by the days parcels wait, and add about 30% for peaks. A tower receiving 80 parcels a day, collected within a day on average, needs roughly 100 cells. That is usually two or more banks, each with its own courier touchscreen.

What happens in the Christmas and Black Friday peak when the lockers fill up?

Plan for overflow. When no cell of the right size is free, the courier marks the parcel as left with the building, the concierge stores it, and the resident is told where it is. Shorter collection time limits and reminders keep cells turning over. Sizing for peaks with the 1.3 headroom factor reduces how often this happens.

Should a high-rise have parcel lockers on every floor?

Usually not. Floor-by-floor lockers mean couriers ride the lifts to every level, which is the lift traffic most towers want to avoid. Most towers are better served by banks at the ground floor or loading dock. Exceptions are very large towers with separate lift zones, where a bank per zone lobby can work.

Can one portal manage several banks and buildings?

Yes. One building portal covers every bank in a building, and an operator or strata manager with several buildings can see them all in one account. Software is a flat monthly fee per building, not per bank.