The City of Hoboken, New Jersey has issued a building permit for the construction of a new state-of-the-art automated parking garage using Robotic Parking's patented Modular Automated Parking System (MAPS).

The computerized facility, which is designed to automatically park and retrieve cars, will provide twice as many parking spaces as a conventional ramp-style garage. Robotic Parking Systems . and general contractor Belcor-Megan, of Hackensack, New Jersey, were awarded the $6.2 million job by the Hoboken Parking Authority.

The garage will be built on a 10,000 square foot lot in a residential section of the city. The building's exterior will have a red-brick façade and windows to blend in with the neighborhood. According to Hoboken's Parking Authority, a mailing sent out last year to residents in a four-block radius from the site of the future garage, brought back 675 requests to be put on a waiting list for the new parking spaces.

Robotic Parking's Modular Automated Parking System unique shelf construction uses shuttles and carriers to move cars throughout the building. There are eighteen mechanical movements that occur simultaneously that allow multiple vehicles to go in different directions, turn and go up and down the garage floors.

General Electric Co. will supply the motors, controls and the year 2000-compliant Human Machine Interface (HMI). Robotic Parking Systems is currently under negotiations to build more garages in Chicago; San Francisco; Portland, Oregon; Washington, D.C. and New York City.

For more information, or to visit the company's new automated parking demonstration facility, contact Robotic Parking at 1-888-ROBOPARK (1-888-762-6727); 280 Walnut St., Leetonia, Ohio, 44431