Long Beach Real Estate-Long Beach Condos

Downtown Long Beach Parking

Impacted Parking Areas

The re-development of Downtown Long Beach and the multitude of new high rise buildings are certain to complicate an already difficult parking shortage.  Many of the historic condos in Downtown do not have any parking available at all.  Residents rent monthly spots in available asphalt lots at fairly reasonable monthly rates, but with land at a premium how long will these lots remain available?  Where will the owners of these condos, local business owners, guests and customers park? 

Recently a friend and I were discussing the parking problems in Downtown Long Beach now and projecting into the future.  As we discussed potential solutions it occurred to me that the solutions themselves were very problematic.  

Vertical Parking and other parking solutions involve a lot of equipment.  Equipment is expensive to both purchase and run, breaks down, requires parts that are not always immediately available and requires trained engineers and mechanics.  What happens when your car is parked on level 5 and the equipment breaks down? What if the part is not immediately available and needs to be imported from Japan?  Would there be a manual over-ride system to bring your car down to ground level? How could all of this be kept affordable?

Many of the systems exhibited in these videos showed fully automated parking structures.  Who do you call when the systems fail?  What happens if it is very late at night?  There I go assuming the lots would be open 24 hours, I am still such a New Yorker sometimes!  But seriously, how could they not be open 7 and 24? 

Tonight I watched many videos from around the world displaying parking systems for both small and large spaces.  While watching I realized that every one of them showed 1 car being easily and quickly parked or retrieved.  It was so simplistic it made me laugh.  I remember an evening in Manhattan when a group of us went to see a show.  The last parking lot with any space available was in a very thin and very tall building with an elevated vertical parking system.  They charged a whopping $60 to park the car and that was 8 or 9 years ago.  We waited well over an hour to retrieve the car.  All of the shows let out at about the same time and the lots were inundated. 

The other thing that really struck me while I was watching these videos was the desolation of the parking lots.  I couldn't imagine retrieving my car at 3:00 AM without experiencing a great deal of fear. 

I can only imagine the stress levels of people waiting for their cars to be delivered to them when they are late for an appointment.  Imagine having to wait for 10 or 15 cars before yours is delivered!  Downtown has a large workforce most of which finish their work day between 5 and 6 PM.  How long would it take for them to get their cars out of these lots? 

We didn't come up with any solutions, but it was an interesting conversation and has my wheels turning (pun intended). 

What do you think?

Update 9/3/08

The owner of Apex Skypark in Anaheim contacted me about the concerns expressed in this post.  As a manufacturer of Robotic Parking Solutions and a company currently involved with the City of Long Beach in an effort to bring these solutions to us, I offered them space on this site to respond. 

Please visit their article at:

Downtown Long Beach-Belmont Shore-Parking Solutions-Long Beach California

Laurie Manny Long Beach Realtor® (562) 212-5420 244 Redondo Avenue Belmont Heights Long Beach, California 90803 Buyers/Sellers/Investors Homes Condos Income Properties 1031 Exchanges