Tag Archives: garage

Smart Snow Removal Practices for Parking Garages

snow parking garageBy Scott C. Bauman, CAPP

With winter at our doorsteps, let’s take this opportunity to review some best practices and procedures for managing snow events and snow removal operations for parking garages.

  • Do not store large piles of snow on the roof of a garage. Large/heavy piles of snow can quickly exceed the live load limits of the structure.
  • Remove snow piles from the garage and perform other snow pile mitigation operations (snow melt machines, hauling, over-the-side dumping, etc.) between snow events.
  • Vehicle snowplows must use a urethane or a heavy rubber plow cutting edge–no metal or steel blades!
  • The snow removal contractor must be aware of the locations of all expansion joints and protruding curbs. Place cones/traffic control devices to mark and identify their locations to avoid damage.
  • Plowing should be done away from expansion joints, not on or across them, to avoid blade contact (and damage) with the joint.
  • The snow removal contractor should always (if possible) plow the snow to sun-exposed corners/areas (and other pre-determined locations) of the garage that ideally have floor drains nearby.
  • Keep floor drains and catch basins clear of snow and ice at all times.
  • Prohibit vehicles (including the snow removal contractor) with studded snow tires and tire chains, as these items can cause damage to concrete, expansion joints, and traffic coating systems.
  • Continually evaluate all areas of the garage during snow events, especially entry/exit lanes and exposed stairwells. Blow-in snow and accumulation throughout the garage will need to be assessed and maintained. Pedestrian routes require continuous attention. Deploy caution signage/devices as needed.
  • If a snow event is expected to be of small accumulation and warmer temperatures are forecast to immediately follow, consider (only if operationally possible) closing the roof to all vehicle/pedestrian operations in advance of the storm and allow the fallen snow to remain and melt in place–do not plow it. This reduces plowing expenses and prevents/reduces snow piles, allowing the fresh snow to melt faster.
  • No deicing agents work in extremely cold temperatures. In frigid temperatures, use sand on icy surfaces to improve traction.
  • Only use garage-friendly anti-icing agents such as sodium acetate, potassium acetate, and calcium magnesium acetate in advance of an approaching snow/ice event. Never use sodium chloride, calcium chloride, ammonium nitrate, or ammonium sulfate in a garage! This is not a complete list of prohibited products–only a list of the most common products. Field verify the deicing agents used by your snow removal contractor. The most widely used and commercially sold deicing agent is sodium chloride (rock salt). This product should never be used in a garage. Please be mindful of its extensive availability and use.

Scott C. Bauman, CAPP, is manager of parking and mobility services with the City of Aurora, Colo.

GARAGE CASE STUDY: An Automated Solution to Parking Perils

By Christian Hermansen

PARKING IS A NECESSARY EVIL IN THE PUBLIC’S MIND. It’s something we all do be­fore going shopping, hanging out with friends, or catching a game. It’s the experi­ence before the experience.

As someone who has recently joined the parking-sphere, I see parking as something where you either have a neutral experience or a below-­average one. Con­sumers rarely perceive a top-notch parking experience.

This lines up with the feedback I hear from friends, family, and members of the general public. People forget the times where everything worked perfectly but re­member the bad experi­ences when it all went wrong. Circling for ages and not being able to find a space, getting confused by not knowing where to drive, and the resulting congestion are all reasons for a negative parking experience.

Parking is also (normally) the first impression a customer gets of the place he or she has just arrived. Everyone knows how important the first impression is in any interaction! It sets the tone for the expe­rience. Making it easy, stress-free, and frictionless means your customer is content when he or she walks in the door ready to engage with your offering rather than lamenting over the bad experience in your park­ing lot.

Many large providers and operators of parking, particularly shopping centers, airports, and cities, are acknowledging this and are taking steps to ensure the best neutral (or even net positive) experience possible for users of their parking. If only there was some way of automatically displaying occupancy and guiding people to available parking spaces.

Circling for ages and not being able to find a space, getting confused by not knowing where to drive, and the resulting congestion are all reasons for a negative parking experience.

Case Study: Irvine Spectrum Center

The Irvine Company has worked for five years to make parking easier for visitors to the massive Southern California shopping center the Irvine Spectrum Cen­ter. It started with the outdoor parking area and then moved to the indoor spaces, with a number of custom requirements catered for along the way.

When the company sought to install another in­door solution at the new Block 800 parking garage on the south side of the site, it took into consideration lessons learned from its established Irvine Center parking areas. Being a new garage, a key component of this project was to keep that minimal, slick, and premium look and feel with the parking guidance installation.

Since implementing the initial parking guidance project at the Irvine Spectrum Center, a new method of detecting vehicles, using an eye-safe, class-one laser sensor mounted in the middle of the driving aisle instead of an older, Bluetooth sensor, had been developed. Users say it offers detection ac­curacy but also greater reliability from eliminating batteries, having no hardware on the often harsh road surface, and a lower cost of install.
But with a new sensor in the equation, the integration done in the past with the site’s existing strip-lighting and LED guidance lights needed a redesign to incorporate new components.

Retrofitting
With a large, internal team of product and hardware engi­neers, along with a dose of can-do attitude, the vendor was able to produce a new fixture to seamlessly attach to the end of lighting enclosures.

There are some other significant benefits to integrating parking guidance technology with existing lighting infra­structure. For example, integrating with the existing infra­structure at the parking lot meant an extremely low-impact installation. Installers were able to use an existing power supply and wire power into the same power supply as the lights, reducing costly cabling or the need for specialized power points.

Anecdotal evidence on the ground suggests the parking guidance is working. Speaking to parking users on a recent site visit, I was told they thought the garage looked smart, new, premium, and clean. Users also told us they enjoyed the easy journey and fast parking and compared the experience they’d just had with an experience in a garage without parking guidance. Customers often cited those “red and green lights and the signs” as the reason for that.

An easier parking experience gets you off on the right foot with your customers. Reduce the time to park, re­duce congestion, reduce circulation time and increase your customer’s experience.

Read the article here.

CHRISTIAN HERMANSEN is brand manager with Frogparking. He can be reached at christian@frogparking.com.

 

Future of Proofing Parking Buildings

By Fernando Sanchez

IN THE UNITED STATES, the entrenched relationship that vehicles have with everyday life P3 Proofinghas affected the development of cities—most notably parking buildings and other single-purpose forms of mobility structures. Imagining a world without extensive miles of packed highways, parking searches, and construction of single-purpose storage monoliths implies that a series of other changes has taken place, many of which have already started to affect new and near-future projects. Responses to prepare for that eventuality, and the impact it will have on the future of parking buildings and spaces, are currently being planned. Now, owners must sift through added layers of complexity.

The paths available to future-proof a parking building involve choosing how and when to incorporate various responses to a development. As adherence to newly en­acted codes and regulations, global and regional climate change goals, and construction practices continue to emerge, the supply of parking for projects becomes a complicated decision that affects overall cost and design.

Making sense of what solutions should be included in a development remains a multi-faceted discussion as cost, timeframes, and available design choices all weigh on a project. Guides and certification programs exist to determine prescribed levels of green and sus­tainable features, amenities, and conditions. The U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED program and, specifi­cally for parking facilities, Parksmart, are some of the most widely known guides and references used in the U.S. However, without clear means to evaluate features and concepts described in these guides, a myriad of project priorities, goals, and opportunities can be over­looked or not explored at all.

Target Value Delivery

Every worthy parking designer and/or builder will have a repertoire of explored, studied, and constructed solu­tions that can be implemented. Options range from eas­ily implemented program requirements to wholesale plans that convert from parking to other non-storage use. But solutions are not one-size-fits-all, and what is appropriate for a hospital campus may not make sense for a high-density mixed-used development.
Equally differentiating are cost implications. Some responses can easily be incorporated with minimal cost, but there are those that can increase project costs many-fold—sometimes beyond 50 percent of typical expenses for self-parking projects. More appropriate to cost evaluations are the non-design components, such as financing, ownership portfolios, and other similar issues.

A system that aids in response selection and pro­vides cost and schedule certainty helps organize a proj­ect to appropriately evaluate future-proofing options. The target value delivery method implements a series of tools and approaches to define the owner’s program requirements (OPR), which then is extrapolated to define the conditions of satisfaction (CoS) that guide a basis of design (BOD) document for the project. This system sets the framework for owners to achieve suc­cess with their projects.

Depending on the delivery method selected by the owner—traditional design-bid-build, design-build, or any of a series on the spectrum—the output helps guide owners to make appropriate selections for their project. Whether created with a designer or by a design-build team, the OPR establishes the initial over­arching direction and goals the project needs to achieve. Is it desired to reach LEED platinum levels, or will Parksmart certification be required? What is the desired interaction between the street and the build­ing? Does the project need to respond to future chang­es in five, 10, or 15 years? Whichever direction chosen, an owner’s first step is to define desired aspirations and goals specific to desired outcomes, not “what it looks like,” but rather “what it should accomplish.”

FUTURE-PROOFING ALTERNATIVES
Now, with an understanding of how to evaluate available alternatives,
consider the following list and categorization of possible alternatives on a parking development:

Alternatives to define at the OPR stage:

1. Transportation-oriented Development.

• Connectivity to mass transit hubs.
• Last-mile traveled support systems.

2.Street/curb management.

3.Changes in use; parking is vehicle-oriented.

•Change to human-oriented uses.
•Change to other non-human–oriented use.

4.Sustainability goals.

5.Reduction of energy use.

6.Energy generation/storage onsite.

7.Improved mobility responses.

Definition of alternatives at the COS stage:

1.Transportation.

•Degree to build connectivity to the street.

2.Street management.

•Self-driving vehicles.
•Improvement of use of curb.

3.Change in use.

•Battery farms.
•Network nodes.
•Autonomous vehicle infrastructure.
•Automatic vehicle storage and retrieval systems.

4.Sustainability goals.

•Materials used in construction.
•Quantity of electric-vehicle (EV) charging stations.

5.Reduce energy use.

•Lighting systems.
•Construction methods and embodied energy.

6.Generate energy onsite.

•Dynamos/generators.
•Steam.
•Wind.
•Hydroelectric.
•Photovoltaic arrays.

7.Mobility improvements.

•Ride-share.
•Scooters.

Application of alternatives at the BOD stage:

1.Transportation—parking and EV station locations—participation in mapping apps.

2.Type of connectivity.

•Bus stop proximity.
•Dedicated lanes for various transportation modes.
•Allocation of space at development.
•Management programs for transportation—incentives, discount programs, emergency transportation.

3.Implications of feature to add in converting use.

•Higher ceilings.
•Sloped floors.
•Egress requirements.
•Fire life safety requirements.
•Mechanical lifts—user operated.
•Semi-automatic—puzzle systems that are user operated with some logic board.
•Full-automatic—full computer operated at input bays; City of West Hollywood, Calif., for example.

4.Materials used in construction.

•Carbon curing—capturing CO2 from industrial emitters into concrete mix—converts to CaCO3 (calcium carbonate—capturing CO2).
•Type of charging stations, such as ChargePoint vs. Tesla chargers.
•Code minimums (8 percent EV spaces in California) or higher voluntary tiers.

5.Reduction of energy use.

•Light fixture performance.
•Lighting strategies—daylight harvesting.

6.Power generation onsite.

•Extent of power generation—in kWH or surface area available.

7.Mobility improvements.

•Service requirements—areas to host shared-ride services.

Further into the project’s development, the owner’s next step is to define the CoS—a detailed description of how a design response will be measured to achieve the OPR. Perfect examples are the LEED and Parksmart point system certification levels. The CoS should tailor the point categories of each rating system and describe a means to determine any priorities in design respons­es. The categories created in the Parksmart guide serve well in evaluating a parking projects attainment of the OPR by categorizing the myriad design responses to future proofing: management, programs, technology and structure design, and innovation. Similarly, the CoS could indicate the expected LEED level to be achieved—silver, gold, platinum. For projects in California, de­scribing which higher voluntary tier requirements list­ed in CalGreen are important to satisfying the OPR.

The third and final step in determining how to future­proof a parking development is diving into the myriad responses with the design team and, whenever possible, the construction team, to develop the project’s BOD. The inclusion of the construction team is to analyze constructability and schedule effects. Typically, this evaluation takes place during early design phases. The BOD should identify the specific nature of each response or component and how it will achieve the levels set in the CoS. A properly developed BOD should align with the development of the project’s performance specifications. Specific considerations to include are the components and modifications important to each system in case replacements are required in the future. A naturally ventilated parking building will not include a mechanical ventilation system, but if the project is determined to need exhaust and supply fans in the future, the size and volume consideration should be clearly identified.

Choosing by Advantages
The crux in creating a BOD lies with determining which systems to include and to what degree they need to be defined to meet the CoS. It is quite easy to say that cost exceeds all other considerations, but in trans­forming into a more sustainable world, opportunity costs can be offset by other features that achieve OPR. With that in mind, the LEAN Institute and others have written extensively on ways that Choosing by Advan­tages (CBA)—a decision-making method to determine best decisions by weighting advantages of particular options for consideration and selection—can be imple­mented and the steps involved to achieve selection.

Applied to future-proofing a parking development (or any development for that matter), CBA provides a system to study various options based on valuing the importance of advantages between a particular set of options described in the CoS and determine the best choice. Familiar to many in the AEC (architecture, engineering, and construction) world is the use of the Tabular Method to record this evaluation, and many great summary explanations have been published de­tailing the step-by-step procedures.

Criteria to be evaluated will be particular to each system. For example, if the program requirements iden­tify future conversion for revenue gain, the CoS could identify a future conversion from a self-park system to a mechanical parking system. To determine which mechanical parking system to define in the BOD, CBA could compare the self-parking design to a parking-lift system, puzzle-lift system, and a full-automatic system. Factors to evaluate would identify the extent of changes required for conversion, structural system initial re­quirements, fire life safety system initial requirements, fire life safety future requirements, revenue potential, aesthetics, serviceability, and area-per-parking space, among other things. The attributes of each alternative would then be summarized, and the advantage of each would be determined from the least preferred attribute of each factor and ultimately charting the advantages of each alternative against the cost of each system to de­termine the best solution to incorporate. The last step uses cost to determine a comparison chart for selection.

CBA allows for a transparent and open evalua­tion of various systems to consider when deciding to ­future-proof a parking building.

To borrow from Nils Bohr, Nobel laureate, “Predic­tion is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.” It may be a daunting task to future-proof a develop­ment based on the many alternatives and systems currently or possibly available in the offing. However, using the described system to evaluate, compare, and select from the various alternatives will help a project team select the most appropriate alternatives for a giv­en parking building project.

Read the article here.

FERNANDO J. SANCHEZ is an integrated design director with McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. He can be reached at fsanchez@mccarthy.com.

 

Enemy at the Gate?

By Michelle W. Jones, CAE, CMP

Sometimes at night I’ll watch old sitcoms. One recent evening I was scrolling the onscreen program guide, and I saw some episodes of “Frasier” coming up. In the middle of the night an episode was going to air involving a parking garage. I had to DVR it!

The episode (S10:E2), was called “Enemy at the Gate.” Frasier and his brother Niles entered a mall parking garage, took a ticket, and immediately realized they did not have time to stay, so they continued driving around the attendant’s booth and attempted to leave. Gate lowered, the attendant said, “Two dollars.” Frasier replied that no, he decided not to park, and therefore owed nothing. The attendant explained that up to 20 minutes—and any portion thereof—cost $2. They had a heated debate, including Niles offering to pay, but Frasier’s stance was one of principle: He had not parked or used a space. After some time, Frasier conceded and agreed to pay the $2 but insisted he would get his full 20 minutes worth. He sat parked at the booth and exit gate while angry customers lined up behind him. In the end Frasier’s ranting exceeded the 20 minutes, he owed $4, and he busted through the exit gate. (This response is never OK!)

Watching the episode as a parking customer, I could sort of see Frasier’s rationale regarding the payment. But as a convert to the parking profession, I understand the reason for such pricing. In April 2018, Canada’s Victoria Transport Policy Institute published  Parking Pricing Implementation Guidelines. As IPMI members are keenly aware, “Prices can be structured to achieve various objectives, such as financing parking facilities, parking and transportation demand management, and to generate additional revenues (profits).” While less than 30 seconds in a parking garage does not contribute to the pricing benefits such as improved user convenience and reduced traffic problems, it does indeed help recover parking facility construction and operating expenses.

Michelle W. Jones, CAE, CMP, is IPMI’s director of convention and meeting services.

City Partners with Businesses to Offer Garage Parkers Gifts

In an effort to spread awareness about parking options, the City of Royal, Oak, Mich., has partnered with local businesses to offer drivers gifts if they park in garages.

The city owns three garages–with a fourth opening this summer–totaling 3,000 spaces, but closed a surface lot earlier this year. To encourage drivers to park in the garages instead of struggling to find parking elsewhere, it’s partnered with four local businesses to offer a different incentive for drivers who show garage parking receipts during each of four weeks:

  • 15 percent off an order in a local coffee shop.
  • Free fries with any burger or sandwich in a restaurant.
  • 10 percent off purchases in a toy store.
  • Free snack bites in a healthy fast-casual restaurant.

Read the whole story here. Good idea or not so much? Has your municipality tried something similar? Post to Forum about it–we’d love to know.

 

 

Parking Paradigm

A new structure connects people and parking in the heart of downtown Berkeley, Calif.19-04 Parking Paradigm article

By Cali Yang

The Center Street Parking Garage in Berkeley, Calif., serves visitors of the bus­tling downtown as well as the Berkeley arts and theater district. The 250,000 square-foot, eight-level garage sits on an existing site previously occupied by a four-story parking structure built in the late 1950s. Easily accessible by mass transit, bicyclists, pedestrians, and drivers, the new $40 million structure provides 720 spaces for cars and 350 spaces for bikes in eight levels. It was constructed for $40 million.

Design and Aesthetics

The garage features an art exhibit space, cafe, bike va­let, public restroom facilities, state-of-the-art security system, and a dynamic parking count system with red and green indicator lights that show available spaces. The public restrooms contain stainless-steel fixtures, tiled floors, and open entrances with graphic display. The garage also houses a bike-share network and in­cludes a BART bike station with a bicycle-equipment repair shop and 55 secured bicycle parking spaces.

Graphic color schemes throughout the facility provide easy visibility for wayfinding to and from the vertical circulation elements and orientation to either end of the building. Vivid red and green signage ele­ments signify the two entrances into the garage and help patrons navigate throughout the structure. Large arrows painted on the floor denote safe pathways for pedestrians. Differently colored wall graphics at every floor indicate the direction to the arts district and Center Street. A state-of-the-art navigation sys­tem helps patrons find available spaces more quickly.

Additional graphic elements, such as recycling sig­nage, oversized restroom signs, electric-vehicle (EV) charging, and tire inflation station spaces, provide easy identification.
The exterior facade consists of folded perforated metal panels, creating a wave-like form on both the Addison Street and Center Street facades. The metal panels are in more than 20 size variations, and each one is numbered and bolted into place in an accordi­on-like fashion. The elevation is capped by a contin­uous metal-panel-clad canopy that protects the stair and visually terminates the facade. A covered canti­levered walkway at the second level is clad in an ac­cent-colored perforated metal that articulates up the exterior on a dramatic twisting staircase. The stair­cases provide an open, safe, and secure way for visitors to access the downtown area. The exterior design is highlighted by accent lighting that is programmable and allows a dynamic variety of colors for visual effect at night. The chic exterior design is an eye-catching sculpture and enhances the vitality of Berkeley.
THE PARKING PROFESSIONAL | APRIL 2019 | PARKING-MOBILITY.ORG 49

Functionality

The City of Berkeley commissioned a compre­hensive multi-project street and open space improvement plan (SOSIP), which is intended to increase pedestrian activity throughout the downtown area. Reducing the number of street parking spaces widens sidewalk space and increases foot traffic. Due to seismic and func­tionality issues, the city decided to build a new replacement garage on the site of the existing 420-space structure, which was constructed in 1958 and closed in 2016. The new garage was created with the SOSIP in mind—bringing to­gether a community vision of an engaging and
vibrant downtown.

The new structure also features ground-level retail space, cafe with open sidewalk, and landscaped path­ways that offer seating areas for patrons. A free public bicycle valet is also available to visitors to the area, which encourages use of alternative transportation. Approximately 10 percent of Berkeley residents com­mute by bicycle, and creating a rider-friendly facility was extremely important to the city. The garage is con­veniently located within half a block of the Downtown Berkeley BART station, so it is easy to drop off a bike and hop on the BART train.

Berkeley Community College is located across the street from the garage and provides a convenient option for students to use the valet and 24-hour bi­cycle facility in the building. On the Center Street side, a coffee shop is located at the ground level with an extra-wide sidewalk for customers to gather and socialize. There is also a landscape parklet area with benches for patrons and pedestrians.

The garage features a flexible lane at each entrance to allow traffic to switch directions based on the time of day and traffic flow to avoid backups caused by events in the theater and arts district. The garage is designed in a double helix configuration to provide maximum park­ing capacity while maintaining a high level of service for roof-level patrons exiting the structure. The double helix ramp allows drivers to circulate two parking lev­els with each 360-degree trip, thus expediting exit and ostensibly converting this eight-level structure into two intertwined four-level structures. Cross-over ramps and extensive dynamic signage are incorporated to pro­vide flexible way finding options for users.

The garage is equipped with a state-of-the-art guid­ance system featuring red and green lights and camer­as monitoring traffic flow at the garage intersections. Wayfinding systems provide interior and exterior parking stall counts of available spaces by level and direction proximity indicators leading patrons toward the open spaces. Other special and unique amenities include a tire-inflation station for cars and bicycles, preferred parking for fuel-efficient vehicles, and a car-share program. Emergency phones are located throughout the building and connect directly to the police department.

Collaboration and Community
The new parking structure supports the economic, insti­tutional, and artistic vitality of Downtown Berkeley. It is centrally located in the heart of downtown with conve­nient access to Berkeley City College and the arts district with theater and music venues. Rates for the new garage are significantly lower than surrounding street parking, which encourages patrons to park in the structure and allows visitors to spend more time in the area.

Providing an increase of 63 percent in parking availability, the new garage has brought new vibrancy to the community and encourages visitors to park and walk to their destinations. The art gallery on the ground floor on the Addison Street frontage features rotating art displays, which are selected and approved by the Berkeley Civic Arts Commission.

International Parking Design worked closely with the city, community members, BART, regional bicycle coalition, and other project team members. Weekly coordination meetings were held during design and construction, when various issues were discussed and resolved. The structure was constructed by local area contractors, resulting in shorter commutes and re­duced environmental effects.

“WHAT THEY’RE SAYING”

“The new Center Street Garage is an exciting addition to the Downtown Berkeley arts and mixed-use district. As our downtown develops, arts patrons and downtown visitors are welcoming this striking and convenient supply of parking.” —Denise Pinkston, vice chairperson, Zoning Adjustments Board, City of Berkeley.

“Unexpected in more ways than one, Berkeley’s Center Street Garage is the rare example of an unloved building type done in a way that’s a visual treat. If it nudges a few cities or public agencies to demand higher standards from the next round of parking structures, all the better.” John King, urban design critic, San Francisco Chronicle.

“The idea is to make downtown more pedestrian friendly.”
Farid Javandel, transportation manager, City of Berkeley

“We love that the new Center Street Garage has such a striking design! From commuters, merchants, and residents, we’ve been hearing that it is the best-looking building in downtown Berkeley. It’s bright and spacious, built with an open-air concept. The compliments just keep pouring in!”
Danette Perry, CAPP, parking services manager, City of Berkeley.

“The greenest parking garage in California. Downtown Berkeley is moving forward.” Jesse Arreguin, mayor, City of Berkeley.

Sustainability

The garage contains a multitude of sustainable features, including 500 solar panels on the roof, electric-vehicle charging stations, recycled materials, rainwater catchment, and stormwater treatment vege­tation. Rainwater flows through 8,000-gallon cisterns that irrigate landscaping and planters adjacent to the garage. Energy-efficient sensor-controlled lighting, recycling receptacles, water-conserving restroom fixtures, and paints with low volatile organic com­pounds are also incorporated. The garage elevators are equipped with LED lighting and door-drive motors that can enter standby mode when not in use. The garage is expected to receive Parksmart Gold certifi­cation. Natural ventilation, building systems commis­sioning, and an energy-efficient mechanical system with HVAC controls are other sustainable features incorporated throughout the garage. The roof struc­tural system can accommodate the addition of future solar panels over the entire rooftop level, and the con­duits are run to a microgrid distribution network at the ground level for electricity distribution to other essen­tial city facilities in the area.

Read the article here.

CALI YANG is marketing manager with International Parking Design, Inc. She can be reached at cyang@oc.ipd-global.com.

THE PARKING PROFESSIONAL | APRIL 2019 | PARKING-MOBILITY.ORG

Parking Under the Canals

Where do you put parking in a town crisscrossed by canals when almost all the land is spoken for?

Under water. Of course. That’s exactly what happened in De Pijp, Amsterdam, established in the 1880s and waterlocked, so to speak. It’s a popular destination for both tourists and people eager to live in its quaint houses, and its streets became clogged with parked cars. So architects and designers did the most logical thing: Eased the parking crunch with a new structure built underneath the town’s canals. The resulting Albert Cuyp Parking Garage is light and bright inside, holds 600 cars and 60 bicycles, and is a bit of an engineering marvel. It’s the first garage of its kind (we think it’s pretty awesome!) and, some hope, one of many to come that will use underwater space for parking.

The Parking Professional features this garage and explains how it was designed and built and how it’s used in daily life, with plenty of photos. Read the whole story here. Then let us know in the comments: Is this the wave of the future?