ASCE Los Angeles Section

“1085 N. Sweetzer Ave
West Hollywood, CA 90069”

“The City of West Hollywood built the first fully automated, municipally run parking structure, on the West Coast. Automated parking, while common in many parts of the world, is relatively new to the United States, especially in car culture Los Angeles. Through the use of a computerized parking system, these structures can provide an extremely dense configuration of parking spaces, on a smaller footprint than traditional parking structures. Because there are no ramps nor drive aisles, parking stalls can be organized in a more efficient lay Also ceiling heights between floors can be lower since no one is getting into or out of their cars.

The City’s 200 space automated parking structure replaced a 68 space surface parking lot that serviced City Hall. The space saving allowed for greater setbacks from the apartments next door, a large courtyard between the two buildings, and a pick up/drop off area that can also be used for larger delivery trucks and smart phone based ride sharing services.

How does it work? City staff and visitors to City Hall enter one of four parking bays, which are similar in nature to a residential garage, then park and lock their vehicle. Then they proceed to a ticket dispenser outside of the parking bay, where they would either swipe their badge or push the button to receive a claim ticket, exactly like the ones used for parking lot with gate arms. The garage door is then closed and the vehicle is quickly scanned for size and shape. An interior garage door then opens and through the use of computerized dollies that slide under your car, it picks it up by tires, and stores it in a parking space. Upon return to the parking structure, the claim ticket is deposited into a pay station, which will signal the system to retrieve your vehicle and deliver it to a parking bay.

For our City this parking structure was more than just adding convenient parking. It successfully demonstrates that sustainable products can be incorporated into the design. This project uses state of the art composite wood panels that are made primarily from recycled plastic grocery bags and plastic milk jugs. Power for the structure is supplemented by a roof top photovoltaic system that was integrated as architectural features of the building. Carbon dioxide emissions are reduced because cars do not have to circle around looking for an available spot, and they do not sit idling in the drive aisle while waiting for a car to back out of a parking space. The reduced emissions are equivalent to removing 92 cars from the road each year or the planting of 67,000 trees. Another green aspect comes from eliminating the need to have the lights on all the time inside the structure, since people are not getting into and out of their cars, the energy efficient lighting that is installed can be off until needed.

A robust public art component has been incorporated into the project. Both permanent and temporary public art installations help create a distinct “civic” sense of place. A glass window was installed at the front of the building so that people can see vehicles moving in the lift rack. This is where world renowned artist, Ned Khan, installed his art piece of glass spheres that pixilate and reflect the moving parts behind the glass. He typically does public art pieces on a much larger scale like the Denver Airport, so it was an honor to have his art incorporated into the design. In each of the parking bays, murals were painted by 4 different artists with various nods to diversity of our community. In the courtyard, large vinyl banners are designed for rotating public art. Currently we have a piece called “Suspended Motion” which depicts three birds painted by a local artist who lives in the City on a parts of a poem titled “Good Morning West Hollywood” written our City Poet, who is also a resident.”

As a public agency it is so easy to get stuck in a culture of repeating what you did before due to limited budgets or not having enough time to research other options. Projects like this is worthy of an award because it is interesting to the public at large and it gives us opportunities to highlight what we do as a civil engineer. It also rewards those who are willing to embrace new technologies and have the vision to push such projects through the various bureaucracies to get buy-in and approvals.

“Being in a densely populated area of the City, finding available parking has long been a problem even before our City incorporated in 1984. In 2010, the City started to look for creative solutions to address this problem. It took a monumental effort that included research, a well thought out design steering committee, patience, lots of presentations, buy in from staff, Fire and the Sheriffs, and ultimately a bold City Council who had the vision to try a new solution to get to the groundbreaking in 2014.

Once under construction, we had to have parking for those who come to City Hall for services. City Hall staff was parking in a traditional styled parking structure just two short blocks away. This was where visitors and those who carpooled would park while the project was under construction. Then staff was sent to satellite parking lots, one East and one West of City Hall, about a 15 – 25 minute walk respectfully. The City was able to get a great low cost group rate for annual BTAP cards from Metro, and gave one to every employee whether you worked at City Hall or not. Since both satellite parking lots were on Metro bus routes, this would help staff get to and from City Hall in a convenient way. The results were that everyone learned that riding the bus was easy, and now most people have some app on their phone to tell them when the next bus is coming. People still use the bus to go lunch spots, because its faster than looking for parking at some our favorite restaurants. It became so popular that the union bargaining units successfully got the City to provide annual TAP cards as a part of their 5-year contracts. One of the best special relationship that was generated was that, as staff we got to talk to people who work in different departments while waiting for and while riding the bus. A sense of comradery developed and now we all have a bus story to share.

Fear of the unknown was an obstacle every step of the way. Although it is capable of being fully autonomous, we decided it was best of have a parking attendant in the parking office whenever the parking structure is open. That way if there are any problems, people have questions, and if someone needs to be hand held through every step of the process, the attendant is there to help. This also calms people’s fears even for those who have been voluntarily testing it for the past five months. “

KPCC 89.3 did an excellent piece on the automated garage for their “Take Two” morning program. I like that A Martinez, as a professional journalist, asks the very same questions we as civil engineers asked when embarking on this highly technical infrastructure project. You can listen to his interview at their website: http://www.scpr.org/programs/take-two/2016/05/24/49119/the-valet-system-without-the-valet-west-hollywood/

Automated parking, while common in many parts of the world, is relatively new to the United States, especially in car culture Los Angeles. Through the use of a computerized parking system, these structures can provide an extremely dense configuration of parking spaces, in a smaller footprint than traditional parking structures. The City of West Hollywood built the first fully automated, municipally run parking structure, on the West Coast.

“The City of West Hollywood built the first fully automated, municipally run parking structure, on the West Coast. Automated parking, while common in many parts of the world, is relatively new to the United States, especially in car culture Los Angeles. Through the use of a computerized parking system, these structures can provide an extremely dense configuration of parking spaces, in a smaller footprint than traditional parking structures. This is because there are no ramps, drive aisles, and ceiling heights between floors can be lower since no one is getting into or out of their cars. The 200 space automated parking structure replaced a 68 space surface parking lot that serviced City Hall. The space saving allowed for greater setbacks from the apartments next door, a courtyard between the two buildings and a pick up/drop off area that can also be used for community events.

How does it work? City staff and visitors to City Hall enter one of four parking bays, which are similar in nature to a residential garage, then park and lock their vehicle. Then they proceed to a ticket dispenser outside of the parking bay, where they would either swipe their badge or push the button to receive a claim ticket, exactly like the ones used for parking lot with gate arms. The garage door is then closed and the vehicle is quickly scanned for size and shape. An interior garage door then opens and through the use of computerized dollies that slide under your car, it picks it up by tires, and stores it in a parking space. Upon return to the parking structure, the claim ticket is deposited into a pay station, which will signal the system to retrieve your vehicle and deliver it to a parking bay.

This project successfully demonstrates that sustainable products can be incorporated into the design. It uses state of the art composite wood panels that are made primarily from recycled plastic grocery bags and plastic milk jugs. Power for the structure is supplemented by a roof top photovoltaic system that is integrated as architectural features of the building structure. Carbon dioxide emissions are reduced because cars no longer have to circle around to look for an available spot, and they do not sit idling in the drive aisle while waiting for a car to back out of a parking space. The reduced emissions are equivalent to removing 92 cars from the road each year or the planting of 67,000 trees. Another green aspect comes from eliminating the need to have the lights on all the time inside the structure, since people are not getting into and out of their cars, the energy efficient lighting that is installed can be off until needed.

As a public agency it is so easy to get stuck in a culture of repeating what you did before due to limited budgets or not having enough time to research other options. Projects like this is interesting to the public at large and it gives us opportunities to highlight what we do as civil engineers.”

Although there are other privately developed automated parking systems out there, such as the 8 unit residential building in Van Nuys, or the UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, we have confirmed that our West Hollywood project is the first municipal built and run automated parking structure on the West Coast.