A multistorey car park (British and Singapore English) or parking garage (American English), also called a multistory, parking building, parking structure, parkade (mainly Canadian), parking ramp, parking deck or indoor parking, is a building designed for car, motorcycle and bicycle parking and where there are a number of floors or levels on which parking takes place. The first known multistory facility was built in London in 1901, and the first underground parking was built in Barcelona in 1904. (See History, below.) The term multistory is almost never used in the US, since parking structures are almost all multiple levels. Parking structures may be heated if they are enclosed.
Design of parking structures can add considerable cost for planning new developments, with costs in the United States around $28,000 per space and $56,000 per space for underground (excluding the cost of land), and can be mandated by cities in new building parking requirements. Some cities such as London have abolished previously enacted minimum parking requirements. Minimum parking requirements are a hallmark of zoning and planning codes for municipalities (States do not prescribe parking requirements, while counties and cities can) in the US.
History
The earliest known multi-story car park was opened in May 1901 by City & Suburban Electric Carriage Company at 6 Denman Street, central London. The location had space for 100 vehicles over seven floors, totaling 19,000 square feet. The same company opened a second location in 1902 for 230 vehicles. The company specialized in the sale, storage, valeting and on-demand delivery of electric vehicles that could travel about 40 miles and had a top speed of 20 miles per hour.
The earliest known parking garage in the United States was built in 1918 for the Hotel La Salle at 215 West Washington Street in the West Loop area of downtown Chicago, Illinois. It was designed by Holabird and Roche. The Hotel La Salle was demolished in 1976, but the parking structure remained because it had been designated as preliminary landmark status and the structure was several blocks from the hotel. It was demolished in 2005 after failing to receive landmark status from the city of Chicago. A 49-story apartment tower, 215 West, has taken its place, also featuring a parking garage. When the Capital Garage in Washington, D.C. was built in 1927, it was reportedly the largest parking structure of its kind in the country. It was imploded in 1974.
Design
The movement of vehicles between floors can take place by means of:
interior inclined parking ramps and express ramps without parking – common
interior circular/helical express ramps
exterior ramps – which may take the form of a circular/helical ramp
vehicle lifts (or elevators) – the least common
automated robot systems – combination of ramp and elevator
Where the car park is built on sloping land, it may be split-level or have sloped parking.
Many parking structures are independent buildings dedicated exclusively to that use. The design loads for car parks are often less than the office building they serve (50 psf versus 80 [100] psf), leading to long floor spans of 55–65 feet that permit cars to park in rows without supporting columns in between [called long span]. Podium parking below High/Mid rise buildings are often short span 25–30 feet clear between columns, since office/residential/retail floors above require more support [100 psf per International Building Code]. Columns in short span structures obstruct row based parking spaces and will be less efficient than long span designs; parking efficiency is measured in cars per level square footage [car count/level area]. Common structural systems in the United States for long span structures are prestressed concrete double-tee floor systems, post-tensioned cast-in-place concrete floor systems or short span podium parking with post tensioned slabs and drop panels [drop heads. Steel embeds or thicker slabs can eliminate the need for drop panels, providing higher clearances for higher profile vehicles.]