Amultistorey car park[1][2] (Commonwealth English) orparking garage (American English),[1] also called amultistorey,[3]parking building,parking structure,parkade (Canadian),parking ramp,parking deck, orindoor parking, is a building designed for car, motorcycle, and bicycleparking in which parking takes place on more than one floor or level. The first known multistorey facility was built inLondon in 1901 and the first underground parking was built inBarcelona in 1904 (seehistory).[1] The term multistorey (or multistory) is almost never used in theUnited States, because almost all parking structures have multiple parking levels. Parking structures may beheated if they are enclosed.
Design of parking structures can add considerable cost for planning new developments, with costs in the United States around $28,000 per space and $56,000 per space for underground (excluding the cost of land), and can be required by cities inparking mandates for new buildings.[4] Some cities such as London have abolished previously enacted minimum parking requirements.[5] Minimum parking requirements are a hallmark of zoning and planning codes for municipalities in the US. (States do not prescribe parking requirements, while counties and cities can).[6]
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The earliest known multi-storey car park was opened in May 1901 by City & Suburban Electric Carriage Company at 6 Denman Street, central London. The location had space for 100 vehicles over seven floors, totalling 19,000 square feet (1,800 m2). The same company opened a second location in 1902 for 230 vehicles. The company specialized in the sale, storage, valeting, and on-demand delivery of electric vehicles that could travel about 40 miles (65 km) and had a top speed of 20 miles per hour (32 km/h).
The earliest known parking garage in the United States was built in 1918 for the Hotel La Salle at 215 West Washington Street in the West Loop area of downtown Chicago, Illinois. It was designed by Holabird and Roche.[7] The Hotel La Salle was demolished in 1976, but the parking structure remained because it had been designated as preliminary landmark status[8] and the structure was several blocks from the hotel. It was demolished in 2005 after failing to receive landmark status from the city of Chicago.[9] A 49-storey apartment tower, 215 West, has taken its place, also featuring a parking garage.[10] When theCapital Garage in Washington, D.C. was built in 1927, it was reportedly the largest parking structure of its kind in the country. It was imploded in 1974.[11]
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The movement of vehicles between floors can take place by means of:
Where the car park is built on sloping land, it may besplit-level or have sloped parking.
Many parking structures are independent buildings dedicated exclusively to that use. The design loads for car parks are often less than the office building they serve (50 pounds per square foot (2.4 kPa) versus 80–100 psf (3.8–4.8 kPa)), leading to long floor spans of 55–65 feet (17–20 m) that permit cars to park in rows without supporting columns in between [called long span]. Podium parking below high-rise and mid-rise buildings are often short-span 25–30 feet (7.6–9.1 m) clear between columns, since office/residential/retail floors above require more support [100 psf (4.8 kPa) per International Building Code]. Columns in short -span structures obstruct row based parking spaces and will be less efficient than long-span designs; parking efficiency is measured in cars per level square footage [car count/level area]. Common structural systems in the United States for long-span structures areprestressed concretedouble-tee floor systems, post-tensioned cast-in-place concrete floor systems or short-span podium parking with post-tensioned slabs and drop panels [drop heads. Steel embeds or thicker slabs can eliminate the need for drop panels, providing higher clearances for higher profile vehicles.]
In recent times, parking structures built to serve residential and some business properties have been built as part of a larger building, often underground as part of the basement, such as the parking lot at theAtlantic Station redevelopment inAtlanta. This saves land for other uses (as opposed surface parking), is cheaper and more practical in most cases than a separate structure, and is hidden from view. It protects customers and their cars from weather such as rain, snow, or hot summer sunshine that raises a vehicle's interior temperature to extremely high levels. Underground parking of only two levels was considered an innovative concept in 1964, when developerLouis Lesser developed a two-level underground parking structure under six 10-storey high-rise residential halls atCalifornia State University, Los Angeles, which lacked space for horizontal expansion in the 176-acre (0.71 km2) university. The simple two-level parking structure was considered unusual enough in 1964 that a separate newspaper section entitled "Parking Underground" described the parking lot as an innovative "concept" and as "subterranean spaces".[12][13] InToronto, a 2,400 space underground parking structure belowNathan Phillips Square is one of the world's largest.
Parking which serve shopping centers can be built adjacent to the center for easier access at each floor between shops and parking. One example isMall of America inBloomington, Minnesota, USA, which has two large parking lots attached to the building, at the eastern and western ends. A common position for parking within shopping centers in the UK is on the roof, around the various utility systems, enabling customers to take lifts straight down into the center. Examples of such areThe Oracle inReading andFestival Place inBasingstoke. Parking garages without mixed use can provide excellent uses for the Roof area: The Grove Parking Garage is the site for movies on its 8th level roof,[14] TheGrand Prix of Long Beach, California can be viewed from the Roof level of The Aquarium of the Pacific Parking Garage and The Pike Parking Garage (opposite the Queensway Structure) were built with a thickened post-tensioned roof slab to accommodate crowds of people.
These parking structures often have low ceiling clearances, typically 7 ft 2 in (2.18 m) and 8 ft 4 in (2.54 m) for accessible parking, which restrict access byfull-size vans and other large vehicles. On 15 December 2013, a man was killed during a robbery in the parking garage atThe Mall at Short Hills inMillburn, New Jersey. The paramedics responding to the shooting were delayed because their ambulance was too large to enter the structure.[15]
In the United States, costs for parking garages are estimated to cost between $25,000 per space, with underground parking costing around $35,000 per space.[5]
Parking structures are subjected to the heavy and shifting loads of moving vehicles, and must bear the associated physical stresses.Expansion joints are used between sections not only for thermal expansion but to accommodate the flexing of the structure's sections due to vehicle traffic. Parking structures are generally not subject tobuilding inspections after being checked for their initial occupancy permit.Seismic retrofits can be applied where earthquakes are an issue.
Some parking structures have partly collapsed, either during construction or years later. In July 2009 a fourth-floor section failed at theCentergy building inmidtown Atlanta, pancaking down and destroying more than 30 vehicles but injuring no-one. In December 2007, a car crashed into the wall of the deck at theSouthPark Mall inCharlotte, North Carolina, weakening it and causing a small collapse which destroyed two cars below. On the same day, one under construction inJacksonville, Florida collapsed as concrete was being poured on the sixth floor.[16]
In November 2008, the sudden collapse of the middle level of a deck inMontreal was preceded by warning signs some weeks before, including cracks and water leaks.[17]
In June 2012, theAlgo Centre Mall's rooftop parking deck collapsed into the building, crashing through the upper level lottery kiosk adjacent to the food court and escalators to the ground floor below, killing two people.[18]
In October 2012 four people were killed and nine more injured when a parking structure under construction at a campus ofMiami-Dade College in Florida collapsed,[19] purportedly due to an unfinished column.[20]
TheSurfside condominium's main building's collapse that killed ninety-eight people was likely caused by the failure of the long-term degradation ofreinforced concretestructural support in the basement-level parking garage.[21]
As multi-storey car parks have become more common since the middle of the twentieth century, many constructions of such structures have been usingprecast concrete to reduce the construction time. The design involves putting parking structure parts together. The parts of precast concrete include multi-storey structural wall panels, interior and exterior columns, structural floors,girders, wall panels, stairs, and slabs. The precast concrete parts are transported using flatbed semi-trailers to the sites. The structural floor modules may need to be laid tilted during the transportation in order to cover as large floor area as possible while they can be easily transported on the roadways. The modules are lifted usingprecast concrete lifting anchor systems at the sites for assembly. Decorations may include using of covers to close the holes in the precast concrete that contains the lifting anchors, and installing facades to the exterior of the structures.
In modern construction of the precast modules, there are other features to improve the strength of the structure. An example is to useprestressed strands on post-tensioned concrete for the construction of theshear walls. Another example is the use ofcarbon-fiber-reinforced polymer to replace steel wire mesh to lighten the load and yield more corrosion resistance especially for the cold-climate areas which use salt for melting snow.[22]
These structures are not usually known for their architectural value. AsArchitectural Record has noted, "In the Pantheon of Building Types, the parking garage lurks somewhere in the vicinity of prisons and toll plazas."[23]The New York Times has labelled parking structures as "the grim afterthought of American design".[24]
A handful of structures have received considerable praise for their design, including
The termmultistorey car park (often abbreviated tomultistorey ormultistory)[3] is used in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and manyCommonwealth of Nations countries, and it is nowadays most commonly spelled without a hyphen.[1][2] In the United States, the termparking structure is used,[26] especially when it is necessary to distinguish such a structure from the "garage" connected with a house. In some places in North America, "parking garage" refers only to an indoor, often underground, structure. Outdoor, multi-level parking facilities are referred to by a number of regional terms:
Architects andstructural engineers in the USA are likely to call it a parking structure since their work is all about structures and since that term is the vernacular in the United States.[citation needed] When constructed as the base of a high-rise, it is sometimes called aparking podium.[30] United Statesbuilding codes use the termopen parking garage to refer to a structure designed for car storage that has openings along at least 40% of the perimeter, as opposed to anenclosed parking garage that requires mechanical ventilation.[31] Natural or mechanical ventilation provides fresh air flow to disperse car exhaust in normal conditions, or hot gas and smoke in case of fire.
Typically parking consultants in the UK describe the number of car park floors in terms of "G+x". G stands for ground and x for the number of floors above ground. For example, G+5 is a multi-storey car park structure with a ground floor and 5 floors above that, i.e. a total of 6 floors. The preceding does not apply to the United States where B+x refers to basement levels ascending in number x while descending in elevation, L1 or ground level [unlike European standards where ground level is below level 1] with added levels as L2, L3, L4, etc.[26]
Structure car parks are car parks made of structural steel components connected to each other to carry the loads and provide full structural rigidity.
Steel is a high-strength material requiring less material than other types of structures like concrete and timber. Steel construction features:
The ceiling slab of the steel structure car park is typically made of composite material such as corrugated steel sheets and concrete. The surface of the first-floor parking can be left bare or covered with epoxy or tarmac.
Demand, steel features, and innovation have led to the development of a foundationless, modular, removable steel car park structure.
Parking demand often grows quickly, significantly and sometimes unexpectedly. Modular steel car parks could be the proper solution if the surface area available is not sufficient and can be expanded upward, or whenever it is not feasible to build up a multi-storey parking.The development of the building concept of modular car parks came about by using the modular assembling method of vertical and horizontal elements (such as columns and beams)Modular car park structures are versatile and can be built in phases or in different sizes and shape.The solution makes it possible to develop a parking structure even in case of particular conditions or constraints, such as archaeological sites or city centres, because it allows:
These parking structures are generally demountable and can be relocated to avoid making the choice of converting a surface to parking area irrevocably. They could be used as permanent structures or are conceived as temporary parking facilities for temporary parking demand needs. A number of parking decks have been demounted after a few years – to make room for the development of a permanent structure – and relocated to respond to local parking demand.
The earliest use of anautomated parking system (APS) was in Paris in 1905 at the Garage Rue de Ponthieu.[32] The APS consisted of a groundbreaking[32] multi-storey concrete structure with an internal elevator to transport cars to upper levels where attendants parked the cars.[33]A 1931Popular Mechanics article speculated about design for an underground garage where the car is taken to a parking area by aconveyor and then an elevator to shuttles mounted on rails.[34]
The total cost of ownership of automated parking needs to be carefully considered. The actual cost of construction of automated car parks is typically higher than conventional car park structures, however, this can be offset by the higher space efficiency including reduced excavation waste from minimized footprints. The cost of the mechanical equipment needed to transport the cars needs to be added to the building cost. In addition, operation and maintenance costs of the mechanical equipment need to be added in order to determine the total cost of ownership. Other costs could be saved, for example, there is no need for an energy-intensiveventilating system, since cars are not driven inside and human cashiers or security personnel may not be needed. For naturally ventilated car parks structures, the ventilation equipment is not needed.[35]
Automated car parks rely on similar technology to that used for mechanical handling and document retrieval. The driver leaves the car in an entrance module, and it is then transported to a parking slot by a robotictrolley. For the driver, the process of parking is reduced to leaving the car inside an entrance module.
At peak periods a wait may occur before entering or leaving, because loading passengers and luggage occurs at the entrance and exit rather than at the parking stall. This loading blocks the entrance or exit from being available to others. It is generally not recommended to use automated car parks for high peak hour volume facilities.
Additional factors that need to be taken into consideration are:
Automotive factories and car dealerships often use automated car parks to store inventory, which makes best use of space if they operate in urban areas, plus the car park may be decorated to promote the brand.[36] For instance at theAutostadt there are two 60-metre (200 ft) tall glass silos (AutoTürme) used as storage for new Volkswagens. The two towers are connected to the Volkswagen factory by a 700-metre (2,300 ft) tunnel. When cars arrive at the towers they are carried up at a speed of 1.5 metres per second (4.9 ft/s). The render for the Autostadt shows 6 towers. When purchasing a car from Volkswagen (the main brand only, not the sub-brands) in select European countries, it is optional if the customer wants it delivered to the dealership where it was bought or if the customer wants to travel to Autostadt to pick it up. If the latter is chosen, the Autostadt supplies the customer with free entrance, meal tickets and a variety of events building up to the point where the customer can follow on screen as the automatic elevator picks up the selected car in one of the silos. The car is then transported out to the customer without having driven a single meter, and theodometer is thus on "0".[37]
Automated car parks have been popular for multistorey residential buildings inNew York City andParis. InToronto, automated car parks are gradually catching in the downtown corecondominium developments since the 2010s, due to developers having to meet city-mandated minimum parking space requirements while building on increasingly smaller lots.[38][39]
Modern car parks utilize a variety of technologies to help motorists find unoccupied parking spaces,car location when returning to the vehicle and improve their experience. These includeadaptive lighting,sensors andparking space LED indicators (red for occupied, green for available and blue is reserved for the disabled; above every parking space),indoor positioning system (IPS), includingQR code, andmobile payment options. The Santa Monica Place shopping mall in California has cameras on each stall that can help count the lot occupancy and find lost cars.[41]
Online booking technology service providers have been created to help drivers find long-term parking in an automated manner, while also providing significant savings for those who book parking spaces ahead of time. They use real-time inventory management checking technology to display car parks with availability, sorted by price and distance from the airport.
Other recent developments in technology include Vehicles Detection and Count Systems, Point of Sale & Revenue Control Systems, Traffic & Capacity Monitoring Systems, Valet Parking Point of Sale, Management & Revenue Control Systems. These systems help in way finding for parking clients with space availability shown at every turn, space monitoring using retrofit wifi transmitters in each space to update the space availability signs and to alert parking management of bottle necks and intervention measures. Revenue Control, Capacity Management, and Valet Point of Sale is a major issue for Office and Retail parking management and is also a means of parking management intervention, where website update the status of all of these issues for exclusive use by management. Irvine Spectrum Center, Irvine CA, with 3 parking structures, uses all of these systems[42] The City of Santa Monica uses Traffic and Capacity Monitoring with its 30 parking structures. Disneyland, in Anaheim CA uses most of these hi-tech solutions on its 8 garages.
In 1991, a 1975marine vessel was transformed into a floatingpontoon multi-storey car parking facility. The ship was given the new nameP-Arken (a pun on the wordspark andark) and it is permanently moored inGothenburg's harbourLilla Bommen nearSkeppsbron.[43][44][45][46]
In November 2019, a fully-clad parking barge for automobiles was patented in the United States. Its angular sides are designed to protect against driving wind, rain, and debris.[47][48]
In October 2009, theNational Building Museum opened an exhibition solely devoted to the study of parking garages and their impact on the built environment. This exhibition, titledHouse of Cars: Innovation and the Parking Garage,[49] was on view until 11 July 2010.
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