These parking systems are designed to save space, be energy efficient, and minimize pollution. Safety is maximized and crashes are minimized. Barely taking hold in the US, this technology is currently sweeping Europe and Asia. With LEED certifications taking significance in building design, it’s inevitable these parking systems will be added to the list that defines green development. Read more

Take the following actions:

1) Visit the control room before the demo to ensure nobody is operating the system.
2) Park & retrieve your own car.
3) Pick random cars to park and retrieve. Try to park and retrieve a few large vehicles.
4) Make several (ideally 5 or more) simultaneous requests to park and retrieve random cars.
5) Ask to inspect the technician user interface while the garage is running.
6) Cut the main power to the system then bring it back online and try to retrieve your car.
7) If possible, show up unannounced. If first demo is scheduled, come 45 minutes early. If that is not possible, try to come back a 2nd time to “see it one more time”.

Additionally, here are a few things to look for:

1) Are they trying to dictate which vehicle they want you to retrieve?
2) Are they trying to dictate the order of the transactions?
3) Are multiple bays, lifts, and robots being used or is it the same ones each time?
4) Are the same paths being travelled and the same parking spaces being used each time?
5) Are there several people involved in the operations? Are they using phones or computers during the demo?
6) Are excuses being made for odd system behavior?

I know it may seem like a lot of effort, and you will certainly have to pay close attention, but when you are spending millions of dollars on technology you have to live with for decades, it is well worth the effort.

Woody Nash

www.linkedin.com/in/woodynash

The council approved up to $45 million in industrial revenue bonds and up to $12.5 million in tax increment financing to help push forward a $60 million-plus plan to renovate the vacant Exchange Place and Bitting buildings and build apartment space on East Douglas, as well as the garage.

The IRBs – at no cost to the city, because private loans will be used to buy the bonds – allow the developer to avoid paying sales tax on construction materials and furnishings.

Of the TIF money, $3.825 million will pay to acquire the land and $8.675 million will go toward construction costs associated with the parking garage.

The vote was 6-0. Council member Jeff Blubaugh was absent.

The garage, Wichita City Manager Robert Layton said Tuesday, will be open to the public and so meets a council policy on TIFs that says the city’s assistance for downtown projects must be limited to projects offering public benefit.

With a TIF, property tax collected on the apartments and garage will be poured back into the project rather than go back to the city.

“These buildings and this parking lot have been sitting vacant for a number of years. In fact … at one point, there were fences up to protect people who walk by,” said Jeff Fluhr, president of the Wichita Downtown Development Corporation.

Council member James Clendenin agreed, saying the renewed safety expected with the buildings’ renovations is “a greater public improvement … beyond what’s being diverted into the TIFs.”

Blogger Bob Weeks urged the council to reject the incentives, calling the renovation of historic buildings a “lifestyle choice” that should be borne by developers and their tenants. He also told council members that TIF incentives are unpopular with voters.

“Most everyone else pays property taxes in order to pay for the cost of government, not for things that benefit themselves exclusively or nearly so,” he said.

“This will add another 230 apartments to our downtown living (and) will really give a jump start for some other projects that are in the offing but have been kind of waiting for that critical mass moment,” council member Janet Miller said.

The council also voted 6-0 to approve $1.5 million in tax increment financing for brick streets, 33 on-street parking spaces, brick sidewalks, ornamental lighting, landscaping, benches, trash cans, bicycle racks and other improvements along Mosley and Rock Island, between Second and Third. The incentive comes in response to plans by Mosley Investments LLC to redevelop 62,000 square feet of warehouse and commercial space east of the Courtyard by Marriott hotel in Old Town for retail and office use.

Construction has commenced inside the structure that will house an automated robotic parking system at the new 304- unit Costa Hollywood Condominium Resort. In addition to providing a unique luxury amenity that compliments the resort’s other array of upscale features it is a space saving technology permitting the developer to more efficiently, effectively and economically utilize its allowable building area and build residential units in space that what would have otherwise been allocated to parking.

Boomerang’s RoboticValet® system is a fully-integrated automated parking solution incorporating robotics, software and hardware.  This patent-pending technology eliminates ramps and sharply reduces the number of drive aisles, allowing up to twice the density of parked cars and requiring as little as half the space required by a conventional garage. RoboticValet® robots drive on concrete slab floors and use a proprietary automated guidance system to transport vehicles to and from parking spaces. Cars’ ignition systems are shut off before being parked, slashing carbon emissions and electricity consumption for ventilation and lighting.  Boomerang’s technology allows the East Green Street developer to reduce the parking garage footprint and to increase the amount of resident living space.

The 16 story project is adjacent to the University of Illinois campus and is being developed as a joint venture between Chicago based developers HERE Enterprises, LLC and Campus Acquisitions.  Construction has already started and is anticipated to be completed in 2015.

“We are pleased to be working with HERE and Campus Acquisitions on what will be the first fully automated robotic parking system in the State of Illinois,” said Mark Patterson, Chief Executive Officer of Boomerang Systems. “We believe our technology is ideal for student housing projects in environments where space is at a premium and where the market places high value on safety and modern building technology that offers environmentally friendly solutions.”

“In addition to saving space and lessening the impact of parking on the environment, we believe that providing a central drop off and pick up location for vehicles on grade will provide a safer and more convenient parking experience for our student residents,” said James Letchinger, CEO of HERE.  “After investigating a number of automated parking systems, we chose Boomerang’s RoboticValet solution based on the unique advantages of the product and based on Boomerang being a US manufacturer with an experienced in-house installation team.”

Boomerang is the developer and sole provider of the patent-pending Boomerang RoboticValet® automated parking system, which differs from legacy mono-path automated parking systems in that it uses omni-directional, battery-powered robots, and a proprietary software and robotics guidance system, to carry vehicles parked on self-supporting steel trays to and from storage spaces by driving directly on a concrete slab surface, without the use of a rail or track.

Boston regulators Thursday night approved the city’s first parking-free condominium building next to North Station, setting a bold precedent in an effort to reduce automobile use in a densely packed downtown. The 175-unit building is slated to rise at Lovejoy Wharf, a complex of homes, office, and retail spaces off Causeway Street in the West End. A new headquarters for sneaker company Converse Inc. is already under construction there, and the 15-story residential building will come next. The Boston Redevelopment Authority voted to change previously approved plans, with Developer Related Beal asserting parking and transportation demand could be met by surrounding garages and transit services. “This development is going to seize on that existing infrastructure to create a new way of living in this neighborhood and getting around Boston,” said Peter Spellios, an executive with Related Beal. “I don’t think the parking situation is ever going to get fixed simply by building more garages.”  

The Lovejoy Wharf project will serve as a first test of whether Boston can accommodate New-York-style buildings where residents rely more heavily on public transit, taxis, and other forms of transportation. In recent years, Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s administration has begun backing away from city requirements that all new residential buildings come with large supplies of parking. Some residents near North Station remain skeptical of the effort. “It doesn’t make sense to have 175 luxury condominiums and no parking spaces,” said Scott Nogueira, a resident of a neighboring building and owner of Porters Bar and Grill on Portland Street. Nogueira has been pushing the city to build more parking in the area for more than a decade, saying the neighborhood has become inhospitable to short-term parkers and visitors who stay overnight. “It’s now easier to park on the street in the Back Bay than it is in the Bulfinch Triangle,” he said.

Related Beal executives have said there is an ample supply of spaces in the neighborhood to serve 175 new condos. The area contains several large parking garages and is served by commuter rail and the MBTA’s Green and Orange lines. The developers are also adding ferry service to East Boston, South Boston, and other locations. “The access to public transportation in this neighborhood is second to none,” Spellios said. Development in the area is booming.

In addition to Lovejoy Wharf, a developer is proposing to build a 600-foot-tall complex of offices, stores, and hotel rooms in front of TD Garden. That project is expected to add about 900 parking spaces. Another major redevelopment at the site of the Government Center Garage is expected to take more than 1,000 spaces out of the neighborhood.

Typically, the city requires developers of residential buildings in downtown neighborhoods to supply at least one parking space for every two homes constructed. But regulators are constantly reevaluating those requirements and have signaled an openness to proposals with fewer spaces. The BRA board also approved changes to a massive residential and retail complex across from the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in South Boston. The changes, involving open space and the orientation of its apartment towers, will allow the projects to proceed early next year, according to the lead developer, Boston Global Investors. In addition, board members approved construction of an 83-unit condominium building on the former Boston Herald headquarters in the South End. Previously, developers of the so-called Ink Block project had planned to build only apartments on the site, which will also include a Whole Foods supermarket.

Adapted from The Boston Globe

On September 17th, the Green Parking Council, a Connecticut-based nonprofit, hosted an “innovation salon” at the BMW i Ventures start-up incubator in Lower Manhattan. Speakers at the event had plenty of ideas for the garage of the future. The ideas included energy-efficient lighting that can automatically dim when customers are absent; solar panels to offset the electric bill; automated parking systems that cut emissions and pack cars into smaller spaces; and apps that point motorists to available spaces.

Paul Wessel, executive director of Green Parking Council, said the group’s membership represented approximately half of the for-profit parking supply in the United States. Garages haven’t changed much in the last few decades, Mr. Wessel said in an interview, but “the emergence of electric vehicles and the need to figure out charging for them has helped people rethink the role parking can play.

“The parking industry has had something of a Rodney Dangerfield complex, but that’s changing now,” Mr. Wessel said.

John Schmid is the chief executive of Propark America and is parking council’s board chairman. In an interview, he pointed to Propark’s Canopy facility at Denver International Airport, which includes controlled LED lighting, electric vehicle charging and porous pavement, as well as alternative energy applications, including geothermal.

“It became a demonstrator site for green parking,” Mr. Schmid said. “But I decided we should make what we were doing open source, so we could not just make Propark green, but make everybody green.”

There’s certainly plenty of room for improvement. Jennifer Dolin, manager of sustainability and environmental affairs at Osram Sylvania, a lighting provider, cited a 2013 report by the Energy Department that said approximately 95 percent of a parking structure’s annual energy cost is electricity for lighting. And she said that improvements — through automatic controls and more efficient applications — can have quick paybacks for operators as well as major environmental benefits. Many garages are lit 18 hours a day, Ms. Dolin said, but occupied only 20 percent of the time.

Another approach to revolutionizing parking involves taking humans out of the equation. Ari Milstein, director of planning at Automotion Parking Systems, said cars in their facilities are parked on pallets that are stacked on top of each other and moved by electric motors. He said that the systems use half the space of a conventional garage for the same number of cars, reducing operating costs and lighting needs and cutting down on pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

Ari Kahn, policy adviser for electric vehicles for the New York City mayor’s office, said the city now has approximately 140 public charge points for electric vehicles, and that most of them are in public garages.

Adapted from The New York Times, Jim Motavalli