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Shopping Centers Today -> May 2002
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SMART PARKING
High-tech garages cram more cars into less space
By Dave Bodamer
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| Spot the parking garage. Owners of modular automated garages may choose any facade they wish. |
The opening of a new parking garage is rarely heralded as a major event. But then, the facility that opened in March in Hoboken, N.J., was no ordinary parking garage. Given that the garage has no ramps, public elevators or stairwells, those using it don’t go up into the building at all — only their vehicles do, through a sophisticated system of automated vertical and horizontal automobile elevators.
Built by Robotic Parking, Leetonia, Ohio, for the Hoboken Parking Authority (Hoboken is chronically short of parking spaces), the $6.5 million facility is the first public garage of its kind in the United States, company officials say. But it won’t be long before there are many more, they predict.
Because such facilities can store many more cars than conventional garages and take up less room than sprawling parking lots, they could be a boon to retail developers and others wishing to build in dense areas where space is at a premium, proponents say.
“Shopping centers situated in downtowns and within larger entertainment venues are at a disadvantage when compared with suburban malls that have plenty of acreage for parking,” said James Broad, vice president of Detroit-based Broad AutoPark, which is collaborating with Germany’s ThyssenKrupp to bring to the United States a system similar to the one the German company now sells in Europe. “An AutoPark structure resolves this problem, providing thousands of spaces that can be directly connected with the urban shopping center.”
Here’s how it works: A driver picks up a ticket and pulls into a single bay on the ground floor. He leaves the bay, which then hoists his car up into an empty space. Upon returning, the driver pays, inserts his ticket into a reader, and his car is automatically returned to him.
“When the shopper is done, his car is returned to the bay, turned around in the right direction to leave, and he simply gets into the car and goes,” said Gerhard Haag, president of Robotic Parking.
Such facilities have been in use in Europe for some time, and several U.S. corporations have used the system at their headquarters. But manufacturers see shopping centers as a natural fit for this technology in coming years. For starters, owners wouldn’t have to worry about security in their garages anymore, given that neither criminals nor their victims enter these automatic facilities, Haag said.
“Fifty percent of all lawsuits against malls and shopping centers have to do with parking structures,” he said. Automated parking, therefore, could cut insurance rates, he argued.
The system also requires far fewer people than valet parking, and it delivers cars a lot faster.
“The computer-controlled system can handle multiple cars at once and deliver the car in one to two minutes,” Haag said.
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| Finally — a machine that remembers where your car is parked. |
But among the biggest advantages for developers is the space these facilities offer. The 56-foot-tall, seven-story Hoboken facility holds 324 cars in a 1,000-square-foot area. Ordinary garages, with their ramps, require 350 square feet per car, whereas the automated garage requires just 200 square feet per car; this means that a structure the size of a conventional parking garage would hold nearly twice as many vehicles. Broad AutoPark’s system has a similar ratio.
Shopping centers are going to be making a lot of use of this technology, especially upscale centers that typically offer valet parking, predicted Jerry Canter, president of Horner & Canter Associates, Medford, N.J., a traffic and transportation engineering firm that provides consulting for the shopping center industry. And the industry’s maturation has led developers to work with challenging sites that they would not have considered 20 years ago, he said.
“Parking is a very big issue for developers,” Canter added. “Shopping center developers need to be able to serve their customers by having an ample supply of parking.”
Moreover, it is extremely important that customers know there is enough parking at a center; if they think they’re not going to find a space, they’re not going to come, he said.
Another advantage for shoppers is that everyone gets to park near the entrance of the center — no more hikes across massive parking lots, Broad said. For the same reason, special spaces for the physically handicapped will no longer be needed.
Both systems are modular and therefore adaptable to any site configuration, the manufacturers say. And any facade can be used to blend with the architecture of the center or the neighborhood.
For instance, the Hoboken garage facade is virtually indistinguishable from the apartments that flank it on either side.
The system could also be used by developers to appease local planning authorities who are reluctant to grant permission for projects when parking is an issue. Automated parking is the stuff of developers’ dreams, giving them the ability to build larger projects on smaller sites, its manufacturers say.
“I remember one instance where the developer wanted to expand the shopping center, but the town fought it, saying there already was not enough parking at the center,” Carter recalled. The automated garage could have solved this problem, he observed.
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