Living in cities like New York or London comes with its own set of challenges. Even if you’re lucky enough to find accommodation that suits your needs, finding one with a parking spot can be a huge challenge. That’s one of the main reasons people residing in such metropolises prefer not to own a car. A few months back, we came across an absurd listing for a parking spot near Harrods in Knightsbridge, Central London. It was barely big enough to fit in a compact hatchback, yet the asking price for it was more than $100,000. If you find that ludicrously expensive, wait till you hear about the premium parking spots in New York. CNBC recently published a report on high-tech parking spots in the Big Apple, which definitely is one of the rarest amenities in the city. Some of these parking spots can sell for around half a million dollars.
Developers in New York are opting for so-called robo-parking garages to help maximize the usage of space available. These high-tech setups are more like automotive vending machines that effortlessly whisk away cars and store cars in compact spaces. In its report, CNBC featured two buildings in Manhattan offering parking spots for sale. A 140-unit condo building developed by Toll Brothers and located at 121 East 22nd Street near NYC’s Gramercy Park only has 24 automated parking spots. Obviously, they are not going to be cheap. A Florida-based buyer paid a whopping $300,000 when she purchased the building’s most expensive unit – a $9.45 million duplex spanning almost 3,800 square feet.
“As crazy as it may sound, $300,000 for a residential parking spot is considered a reasonable price in New York City,” Senada Adzem, a Florida-based real estate broker at Douglas Elliman, told CNBC. The building’s futuristic robo-parking system is of German make. To use it, all you have to do is drive next to a kiosk in the garage and wave your RFID card next to the reader. Then press a button that will hail an empty pallet up from the level below, onto which you’ll have to park your car. The system uses cameras to scan the vehicle to check that the doors and trunk are closed and no one is inside it. Once the process is done, the vehicle is shuttled away. Retrieving the car is even simpler. Swiping the RFID card will deliver the car right next to you, now turned 180 degrees so that you don’t have to reverse. All that happens in less than 3 minutes. How cool is that!
