NEW YORK CITY-The city finally landed the missing piece of the puzzle for a key Brooklyn project—a developer. The site is Willoughby Square, a public space that's slated to feature a park above a large, high-tech parking garage, and the developer that's stepped into the project is (appropriately enough), the Willoughby Operating Co. an affiliate of the American Development Group, according to the New York Times.
The company will lease the city-owned land with $6 million from city capital, the city's Economic Development Corp. and private contributions from area developers, the Times reports. Willoughby must be eager to work on the project—it has agreed to pay for any cost overruns and to finance the garage's excavation and development.
And that's no small task: the approximately 700-car garage will rely on a system of computers rather than parking attendants. According to the Times, this will be the largest automated parking facility in North America.
The garage is slated to feature very futuristic technology. While parking, plasma screens, mirrors and laser scanners help direct the vehicle into the correct position. The driver then locks the car, takes the keys and heads to a kiosk to answer a few safety questions and swipe a credit card.
Light sensors measure the car's dimensions and cameras photograph the vehicle from several angles. The car is lowered into a parking bay and, upon the drivers return, the car is returned in a process that's slated to take no more than two minutes, the Times reports.
While it's a sophisticated system, the technology costs far less than a traditional garage, the Times reports. Automation equipment runs about $25,000 a vehicle, which goes up to $50,000-$60,000 with excavation costs, says Ari Milstein, director of planning at Automotion, which will provide the technology. By contrast, a conventional garage would cost more like $90,000 per car.
The city intends to being preparing the site this summer, and then demolition will follow. Extensive work is needed to move housing, vacant commercial buildings and some parking garages. The targeted opening date for the park is 2016.
The square will complete the effort to rezone Downtown Brooklyn, says Tucker Reed, president, Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. “From the waterfront to the Barclays Center is the core of the 21st century downtown, and to have a public amenity like this right in the middle ties everything together.”
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Rayna Katz
Rayna Katz is a seasoned business journalist whose extensive experience includes coverage of the lodging sector, travel and the culinary space. She was most recently content director for a business-to-business publisher, overseeing four publications. While at Meeting News, a travel trade publication, she received a Best Reporting award for a story on meeting cancellations in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
