Parking buildings go hi tech
Two new hi-tech Christchurch park buildings opening next week will provide 1263 extra parks in the CBD and save drivers the frustration of trying to spot empty spaces on decks filled with cars.
Electronic message boards on each floor will show how many parks are available, and red and green lights over each parking bay will indicate which are available
First off the blocks on Monday is Ngai Tahu’s new 683-space West End parking building, which runs between Cashel and Hereford streets behind two new office blocks on the King Edward Barracks site.
On Wednesday the barrier arms are expected to go up at businessman Tim Glasson’s new 580-bay car park building in Hereford Street (between Colombo and Manchester streets), with about 500 spaces for casual parking.
As well as servicing office tenants and providing parking for city council vehicles, the West End building will have 270 spaces available for the general public for $2 per half hour.
Tenants will have swipecard access to almost 200 double-decker bike stands, and those with cycles worth more than $5000 will have a separate extra secure ‘‘high value’’ parking area which cannot be seen by passersby.
Ngai Tahu development manager Gordon Craig said it was very satisfying to open Christchurch’s first hi-tech car park building, which has three charging stations for electric vehicles and capacity for more if demand dictates.
The building had been carefully designed for ease of access, he said. ‘‘I used to park in the Hotel Grand Chancellor [car park] and that was a model for what we didn’t want.’’
Wilson Parking will manage the West End facility and southern general manager Vernon Aubrey said it was a nice change to be in a custom-designed building instead of some of the ‘‘bomb site’’ parking areas around the city.
He said the ParkMate app – already in use at Wilson’s open-air parking lots – is being developed so it will work for parking buildings with barrier arms and that would allow drivers to pre-book spaces.
Aubrey said the sensors would gather real-time information that could be transmitted to electronic message boards in the inner city.
He said other car park buildings were adopting the hi-tech information systems and installing ‘‘tap and go’’ credit or debit card payments, which removed the need to collect a ticket at the barrier arm.
The Crossing car park in Lichfield St will close on April 6 so it can be retro-fitted with the new technology. When it reopens on April 10 free parking available to casual users for the past five months will cease.
Developer Anthony Gough also plans to go hi-tech with his 400-bay Hereford St parking building due to open next year.
The Christchurch City Council’s new parking building in Lichfield St will accommodate more than 800 cars when it opens in September. Project director Lee Butcher said tickets would tell drivers where their cars were parked. That would avoid the situation of owners reporting their cars as stolen when in fact they had gone to the wrong deck.
The building’s 428 cameras would also make it possible to find out what had happened if a vehicle had been damaged while parked, Butcher said.