Government Technology - October 2007 - (Page 47)

But Denda said there is hope for change because building codes have migrated over the years to accommodate new technologies. New York City, known for its strict building codes, had little difficulty approving the Chinatown project, Milstein said. The United States has also been notorious for missing the boat on new technology and implementing the technology only after years of trial overseas. “All of it is delayed because U.S. culture is a little more stubborn when it comes to adopting new technology,” Milstein said, adding that the problem of growing metropolitan areas combined with expensive land makes developers and governments increasingly desperate for parking solutions, and could offer an opening for automated garages. IMAGE COURTESY OF ROBOTIC PARKING INC. The ﬁrst fully automated garage built in the United States sits in Hoboken, N.J., and holds a maximum of 314 cars. The facility has dropped a Cadillac DeVille six stories and a Jeep four stories, and is in the midst of a lawsuit regarding property rights. Picking up Speed The genesis of automated parking, Milstein said, is automated warehousing systems, which have enjoyed widespread use in U.S. industrial settings for years. Sensors, elevator-like mechanical components and software constitute the garage’s inner workings. Though the process is entirely automated, an onsite employee answers questions and handles problems. In the garage, a fixed pallet hauls vehicles vertically and horizontally. Upon retrieval, the software finds the car, rotates it outbound and returns it within an estimated two minutes. Mechanical redundancies ensure that the garage can resume its normal functioning during software glitches. To dispel the garage’s mystique, drivers can watch the handling of their vehicles on a closed-circuit television outside the garage. Denda said the technology was first used to shuffle cars in the 1950s when noncomputerized automated garages were used abroad, and in U.S. cities like New York and St. Louis. Fully automated garages like the one in Chinatown were first designed in Europe 20 years ago, he said. The second automated garage in the United States was built shortly after the Hoboken garage and operates in Washington, D.C., serving the residents of a high-rise, luxury condominium. The garage parks 74 cars and was designed by Spacesaver Parking Company. Van Horn said the Washington, D.C., and Chinatown garages are ideal uses of the technology because they don’t demand a big slice of city space — they take up approximately half the room a conventional garage would. “The cost of the equipment is almost meaningless to the additional value added to the project — of gaining back acres of land,” Milstein said. Though automated garages can cost twice as much as conventional garages, comparing the two is like comparing an all-wheel drive truck to a sleek sports car — they serve the same purpose but are valued in different settings. Van Horn said automated garages aren’t meant to replace concrete, open space garages. Instead, they are meant for close-quarter urban environments or infill construction. On average, Denda said, a conventional garage holds approximately 800 cars whereas an automated garage holds fewer than 200 cars. Hoboken Anomaly In October 2002, the first fully automated garage was built in the United States, and it’s been marred with difficulties ever since. Hoboken, N.J., owns the 314-space above-ground parking facility. Robotic Parking Systems of Clearwater, Fla., originally operated the garage, which is similar to the Chinatown garage. The facility, which cost millions more than expected, dropped a Cadillac DeVille six stories and a Jeep four stories, and has been plagued by a lack of clarity in agreements, intellectual property rights disputes and high-profile attacks launched from both sides. The ensuing lawsuit is pending a verdict in court. A Government Technology article (Robot Garage Hijacks Cars, November 2006) chronicled the garage’s troubles and stakeholders’ arguments. But the consensus is that the Hoboken experience is situation specific and was influenced less by the technology and more by the difficult process of accepting new technology. Though the Hoboken garage spawned automated parking skeptics, impeding growth, the industry is now on the upswing, Van Horn said. Denda said automated parking could still work for future publicly owned projects, explaining that contentions between municipalities and private industry crop up in many projects, especially when the territory is uncharted, or when new technology is first established. “It happens every day in one sense. Get a private entity and a public entity, they cut a deal and their goals aren’t met,” Denda said, noting that even conventional garages faced hurdles when they were first constructed. For now, the Automotion setup seems to be working because the company has teamed with the same developer for more New York projects and is set to break ground this year and next, building another garage in Manhattan, and three in Brooklyn. All will be mixed-use and the largest facility, to be built in Brighton Beach, will house 132 cars. “If you’ve got a car, and you live in an urban area, and you can’t build up, and you can’t build out, eventually you have to do something about how you park that car,” said Jeff Faria, a spokesman for Robotic. “So eventually this just happens.” Faria said he’s hopeful that automated parking will catch on in the United States. After all, he said, if New York, which peers across the river at Hoboken, has shaken off the garage’s negative image, so can everybody else. Robotic plans to move forward with several projects — the majority of which will be abroad. On the company’s agenda is a facility for the ultra-modern Emirates Financial Towers in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, another garage in Saudi Arabia and a 229-car garage for a beach resort in Hollywood, Fla. j 47 http://www.govtech.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - October 2007

Contents Point of View Big Picture The Last Mile GT Spectrum Letters How It Works Cerf on the Net Way Back Machine Separation Anxiety Let's Roll Rising to the Challenge Wednesday Afternoon Fever Parking Possibilities Products Signal: Noise

Government Technology - October 2007

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