They’ll be packed in like car-dines.
The city has chosen a futuristic approach to its proposed, 700-unit parking garage under downtown Brooklyn’s Willoughby Square park — a high-tech, robot-controlled system that is so cutting edge that no humans are even needed to staff it.
“It’s basically a vending machine for cars,” said Ari Milstein, 36, executive director of Automotion Parking, which was selected by the city to build the garage, which will begin with a ceremonial groundbreaking next week.
The high-tech system puts cars on pallets and shuffles them into extremely tight spaces.
“This is revolutionary,” said Milstein. “The technology allows us to do things in a much more flexible and economical way.”
Here’s how it works: A driver pulls his vehicle into a port similar to suburban garage, locks the car and gets a ticket from a computer kiosk.
After this, the robot does everything: The car is lowered two stories underground, where a huge forklift grabs the metal pallet, spins it into position and pulls it into an open bay.
The process reverses when the customer returns with his ticket.
No human is needed, though some Automation lots do employ an attendant to handle old-style cash transactions.
Automotion has built three similar systems, two in Manhattan and one in Bushwick — but none nearly as large as the new garage, which will cost around $35 million to complete.
The city has already spent $40 million to buy and condemn properties that currently occupy the space on Willoughby St. between Gold and Duffield Sts.
Seth Pinsky, president of the Economic Development Corporation, said the project is worth the public investment.
“These improvements to the neighborhood will not only benefit the local community, but will also attract even more visitors, residents and businesses to downtown Brooklyn, impacting both the local economy and that of the entire City,” he said in a statement.
The parking company opened its first lot in Chinatown in 2007. That Baxter St. lot holds 68 cars and trucks and is located under a residential building that gives no indication of the complicated robotic system shuffling cars underground.
The Willoughby Square operation will be about 10 times as large, housing 697 vehicles on five tiers of parking extending 37 feet into the earth. The design allows more spaces than would normally fit in an area this size, about half a square city block, and reduces pollution because cars don’t need to idle as they are shuffled.
Above ground, the park will have lawns, trees and picnic areas. It will also include a commemoration of the neighborhood’s roots in the abolition movement — a key point of controversy since the project’s earliest phases.
The park — and the parking lot — are certainly needed, supporters say. The massive City Point project just to the east of Willoughby Square is under construction, and three hotels have already gone up — all bringing cars and visitors, but no green space, to the area.
Construction on the lot is set to begin Aug. 1, and will be completed in 2016.
