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In
a region where parking is increasingly a
problem, two
local developers have come up with a solution:
a robotic
garage.
Who's
doing it: Colin Breen, owner of the South
Tampa
Irish pub Four Green Fields, plans to build
a 180-space
robotic parking garage on a parking lot two
doors down from
the popular watering hole.
Fate
plays a part: Breen originally planned to
build a
conventional parking garage. While researching
robotic
parking garages on the Internet, he discovered
one of the
world's leading manufacturers was in Clearwater.
He figured
he was fated to invest in the technology.
Who
makes it: Robotic Parking, a Clearwater-based
company owned by German-born engineer Gerhard
Haag, is
building both Breen's garage and a 450-space
robotic garage
at Harrison Village, a 141-unit condominium
and retail
complex on Fort Harrison Avenue at Jones Street
in
Clearwater.
How
it works: Motorists drive their
cars onto a pallet and
then exit. An elevator moves vertically to
the proper level
and then horizontally to deliver the car to
its resting space.
Car retrieval takes about two minutes, Haag
said. It features
multiple elevators with backup motors, a backup
computer
system and a generator in case of a power outage.
What's
the advantage: The new plan allows
Breen to fit
more cars on less land. The traditional garage
would have
had a footprint of more than 32,000 square
feet. This one
takes up 6,000 square feet.
Who
else has them: In 2003, Haag's company completed
construction on the country's first robotic
parking garage in
Hoboken, N.J. Besides the two local projects,
he's designing
robotic garages for Fort Lauderdale, Miami
and Brooklyn.
TIA
rates going up Maybe Tampa International
Airport
should consider a robotic garage. Faced with
an everworsening
parking crunch, airport officials plan to vote
next
month to raise parking rates. They had planned
to raise the
daily rates in November but are moving that
up to try to
encourage people not to park at TIA or to choose
the remote
economy lot, where prices won't change.
Current New
Valet parking $18/day $24/day
Short-term garage $14/day $18/day
Long-term garage $10/day $14/day
Remote economy lot $7/day $7/day
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