By Joaquin McPeek
TIMES STAFF WRITER

BERKELEY - The Center Street Garage would become a state-of-the-art robotic parking facility under a proposal forwarded by Mayor Shirley Dean.

The mayor seeks a study of the feasibility of a mechanical system that would lift cars into spaces without the need of an attendant.

The five-story garage can now house about 420 cars, said Debra Padilla of the Downtown Berkeley Association. The proposed system would double the capacity, or could store the same number of vehicles on half the land.

Dean said the Center Street Garage will need a seismic retrofit, and she wants to take advantage of the timing in improve downtown parking.

Padilla agrees, saying the business group favors any creative strategy to help ease a downtown parking shortage.

Dean said that shortage is only growing worse with renovation of the Civic Center building, which eliminated some parking, and an increase in downtown activities expected from a new arts district.

Others are reluctant to jump on the robotic bandwagon.

"I really think there's this overblown hype that there's this large parking crisis," said City Councilman Kriss Worthington.

He said the attention should be shifted into another direction.

"Putting millions of dollars into a facility like this is not as important as providing suitable public transportation for the city," he said.

The proposal's fate relies heavily on the findings of City Manager James Keene as to whether it make fiscal sense. Keene is scheduled to report to the City Council within 60 days.

Although the idea of robotic parking is a relatively new concept here, it has met with high praise in Europe, Japan, and most recently in the United States, where Hoboken, N.J. plans a robotic system.

The German company Robotic Parking has created what it call a Modular Automated Parking System, a computerized method of parking and retrieving cars in multilevel parking structures.

The system uses a variety of lifts to move cars throughout the garage. A driver pulls up into a pallet, where the car is then automatically lifted to an open parking space in the building.

If the cost of the parking facility in New Jersey is any indication, a new Berkeley garage could cost upwards of $6 million.

"If we pit the new facility in place, it would hopefully be funded by a self-supporting bond," Dean said, meaning the structure would pay for itself.

Worthington, however, believes a recent transportation study should give city officials better answers on where to focus money for transportation fixes.

"It's important that we not treat the so-called parking problem as an isolated issue," he said.

Berkeley developer Partick Kennedy disagrees, saying a robotic garage would be a great steppingstone for the art district's future prosperity.

"By eliminating that unnecessary space in the current parking structure, you can open up corner cafes and retail stores, making the community much more valuable," Kennedy said. "To me, it's a great idea."