Downtown Long Beach-Belmont Shore-Parking Solutions-Long Beach California

Long Beach Community News

Long Beach Parking Solutions

Last month the Long Beach Real Estate Home Blog published an article on Downtown Long Beach Parking.  The article discussed the escalating parking problems caused by the re-development in the Downtown Long Beach area.  One of the potential parking solutions addressed was Vertical Parking.  The article went on and examined an assortment of related potential issues and raised a whole bunch of questions for which there were no immediate solutions.  

Shortly after publishing this article I was contacted by the owner of Apex Skypark.  They are a Robotic Parking Solution company located right here in Anaheim.  He took the time to address the concerns and informed me that they are currently working with the City of Long Beach in an attempt to bring these solutions to the Downtown Long Beach and Belmont Shore neighborhoods.  Well, both communities can certainly use more parking - he piqued my interest. 

An invitation to contribute to the Long Beach Real Estate Home Blog was extended to Apex in an effort to better explain this to Long Beach residents.  We are pleased to welcome Harold W Ashworth, a Long Beach Peninsula resident and Vice President of Apex Skypark.

By:  Harold W Ashworth

I have become intimately involved with The City of Long Beach and their Parking Issues. Working with the Long Beach Re-Development Agency has shown me just how critical parking is in the Downtown Long Beach area. As a Long Beach Resident (The Peninsula) I have experienced many of the same issues everyone else faces as they try and Park on 2^nd Street in Belmont Shore for dinner in the evenings and or dinner on the waterfront at Shoreline Village. Whether it is waiting for the Valet to bring your car or running out to re-fill the meter has become quite the challenge.

That being said - The Automated Robotic Car Garages hits close to home for me as I am involved with a local company right here in our own backyard. Apex Skypark®, Inc., located in Anaheim, builds the Robotics and Systems for this new Technology - New to the USA only. Presently there are only 4-5 Garages operating in the USA but many are either under construction or they are in the design phases. We are currently working with Developers and the City of Long Beach on a couple of locations for this very thing. Long Beach will become the first on the West Coast for an Automated Robotic Garage.

There were some very important and concerning facts you brought up and I will try to address those for you here. First of all you should know that Robotic Parking is not any less than Conventional Parking as far as costs are concerned but we can basically get more into less space. Here are some of the concerns you addressed with my response.

Lots in Downtown Long Beach

• Great Research!! You know your city! There are many lots going away and along with that Parking Spaces

Expensive Equipment

• As I stated the cost many times is equal or less than traditional parking. To build a conventional garage it presently costs the City app. $35,000 per parking space not including the land. If you go below grade the costs escalates quite dramatically. Unlike Traditional Garages that for every level you go up it gets more expensive Automated actually goes down in cost.

Expensive Operations

• The economics are quite interesting actually. In a recent exercise we did for the City we analyzed a popular Parking Lot in downtown and concluded that their Expense per Parking space is $10.91 per day compared to $3.11 for Automated - Substantially less.

Parts Required and availability

• Skypark® components are designed and built with “Off the Shelf” components that are readily accessible from almost any local supplier. This is designed intentionally so the end user will never be faced with this exact issue.

Trained Personnel Engineers and Mechanics

• Each System that is delivered has Personnel fully trained in our facility; additionally we also encourage a local Elevator Trained company to partner with Skypark® and the Customer. Basically the System is a sophisticated Elevator System and any company that works on elevators can work on this System.

What happens if your car is on one of the upper levels and the Equipment breaks down?

• The System is designed with Redundancy. For instance there is not just one Robot and Trolley System. The Robot/Trolley is actually two Robots and if one fails then the other can literally push or pull the other one. There are also other Robots in the System to take over. In the event of Power failure there is a Diesel Generator that will automatically take over within 20 seconds. As a last resort the System has a Manual Override.

What if the Part is unavailable and has to be imported from Japan

• All components are sourced from the USA or have actually been designed by the Team at Skypark®. There is also a Spare Parts Kit included with every System. Periodic Regular Scheduled Maintenance is required which in most cases will prevent any System Breakdown.

How could all of this be kept affordable?

• Using State of the Art Technology and low Maintenance Costs

Who do you call if the System fails?

• Skypark® or the local Authorized and Trained Maintenance Company

What happens if it is very late at night?

• 24/7 is always on Call

24 hour availability?

• YES many times we can look at the System via Computer modem and repair or determine exactly what the issue is.

Time to retrieve your car.

• Typically in most cases 1-2 min

Fear of retrieving your car in the middle of the night.

• Each Garage has a Safe and well lit Waiting Room

Large influx of people after work to retrieve their car.

• There are many ways to alleviate this multiple Exit Modules, Call Ahead Retrieval, Valet, etc. The System’s Computer is designed to understand that there are certain vehicles that come and go at different times and as those “Peak” times approach the system will move cars from different levels down closer to the Exit points thus creating a smooth and positive experience.

Do You Want to be Published?

Posted on September 02, 2008 19:47:00 by Laurie.Manny

Comment from: Laurie.Manny [Member] · http://www.longbeachrealestatehome.com

Hi Harold,

Thank you for this informative article, it has addressed most of the issues nicely.  I was wondering if you could tell us a bit more about the projects in both Downtown Long Beach and Belmont Shore.  Also, are you aware of any other parking solutions the City of Long Beach is considering? 

Regards,

Laurie

Permalink September 03, 2008 04:08:10

Comment from: Harold Ashworth [Visitor] · http://www.apexskypark.com

Thanks Laurie,

We have some design things going on right now for Belmont Shore and I have made a presentation to the Business Association. One idea we are kicking around right now is to utilize the small lots off of 2nd Street for Underground Parking. Since the water table is so low it is almost impossible to go very far down but with a new Technology called Secant we may actually be able to accomplish this.

So the idea is this: as an example where there are presently 45 cars on two lots behind the Retail and Restaurants on 2nd Street we have designed an Underground Facility that may house over 200 cars in the same area thus freeing up the land on the surface. We would then have four Entry and Exit points on the surface thus leaving an area app. 150 feet x 80 feet that could be converted into a "Green Space". My suggestion is going to be to utilize this as a Park area for the kids in Belmont Shore as there are -0- Green areas between 2nd Street and Ocean now. This is only in the Conceptual Stages at this point but if it works then would be a fantastic model for other impacted areas in other communities.

Downtown is a challenge as well and we are exploring different areas at this time. I will say that we have designed a System for a lot on Pine that currently has 54 cars on it. Utilizing the Skypark System we would be able to give the City about 200 more spaces on the same lot. There are many things going on in Downtown and I would encourage you to look at the Redevelopment Web Site for more information as it is a Public Domain and will tell you everything that is under planning and future development.

There are many exciting things going on. The Redevelopment Agency has great vision for the future of Long Beach and you will be quite impressed when you find out what is actually in the planning stages.

Please feel free to contact me anytime.

 

Permalink September 03, 2008 07:57:30

Comment on this article

Name

Email
Your email address will not be displayed.

Site/Url
Your URL will be displayed.

Your vote

Poor Excellent

Comment text

Options

  Line breaks become <br />

  Remember me

  Allow users to contact you through a message form.

Captcha

Please enter the characters from the image above. (case insensitive)

Captcha code

This post has no comments awaiting moderation.