Click here for the pdf version

South Tampa - Finding a parking space can be a full-time job, before you get to the 9 to 5.

Tracie Ferris, Tampa "It's a nightmare! You can't ever find parking. And if you do, half the time the parking meters don't work. Then if you do find a parking spot in a parking garage, the spaces are so small, if you don't have a teeny tiny car, you can't fit, it's horrible."

But a Clearwater-based company says it's making things a little easier, with a robotic parking garage.

Gerhard Haag, Robotic Parking Systems "It looks like your garage at home. You drive in a cabin, there are signs that will tell you move left, move right, forward, stop, turn engine off, take key out, and move out of the bay. You move outside, you get a ticket, and that's all, the door closes and the car will be taken away fully-automated, it will be turned around so when you come back you don't need to back out, you can drive outside."

Colin Breen, owner of Four Green Fields in South Tampa, is building a new boutique hotel at a lot near his pub. He looked at the costs and the space consumption of a traditional garage, and decided a robotic garage would be more efficient--and safe for his customers.

Colin Breen, Four Green Fields "You're not driving through ramps, in a garage, taking that type of risk. Walking down dark aisle ways, and staircases, someone breaking into your car, all sorts of problems."

Final approval from the Tampa City Council is needed before the robotic garage can be built. That meeting will take place in two weeks. It takes about a year to build the garage.

De Anna Sheffield, Tampa Bay's 10 News