PARKD delivers first relocatable car park in Australia
City Subaru is an inner-city dealership located 2km from Perth CBD and includes new and used sales and car servicing at the site. The dealership needed a car park to allow the growth of their business and improve the ease with which their customers interacted with their sales and service teams.
Prior to the development of the multi-level parking facility, the dealership had an at-grade bitumen car park that was nearly always in gridlock, impacting on dealership visitors, business limitation and creating pressures on the surrounding residential community through increased on-street parking.
PARKD’s redevelopment of the site has transformed the dealership, increasing the sales area, service capacity, storage capacity and providing increased customer parking on the site. The short installation time, allowed the Subaru team to minimise the disruption to clients and their business, maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction during the redevelopment period. The car park development has doubled the parking capacity at the site, increasing from 45 bays to 109 bays/spaces.
PARKD completed the structure assembly and fit out in under 2 months. If traditional construction methodologies were undertaken, the redevelopment of this site would have more than doubled the construction time to 8-10 months.
The unique solution provided by PARKD is a relocatable solution, providing an increased amenity for now, whilst understanding that the inner-city site will be redeveloped for another use in the future.
The multi-level development increases the efficiency of the land use at the site whilst increasing the safety of the visitors using the facility. The facility has improved the dealership presence at the site, from an architectural standpoint and commercial outcomes.
The PARKD prefabricated concrete system is designed to reduce construction challenges onsite. The modular components simply bolt into location and can be unbolted and relocated to a new location if required. The structure was manufactured locally using PARKD patented technology, located into place in only 12 crane days, greatly reducing the impact of construction works on the client and community.
The PARKD Car Park System consists of three main lightweight concrete elements, thus simplifying the build and assembly process. The PARKD system consists of;
- Continuously Voided Beam (CVB) – Based on hollow-core technology.
- PARKD Transportable Panel (PTP) – Innovative composite steel and precast concrete slab panel.
- Precast concrete, steel or composite columns.
With 90% of the structure being manufactured offsite in a controlled environment, the site program from start to completion was only 6 weeks, allowing a rapid turnaround of the development and reducing the impact on our client’s business.
The PARKD Car Park System requires no formwork and no site concrete activities for above-ground structure. The PARKD development was discretely located behind an existing structure and in places, floated above the existing awning structure. When the project was completed, the structure was not noticeable unless viewed from the rear laneway. The rear laneway façade was treated with high quality Alucabond cladding to provide a contrast to the traditional façade to the street frontage. The PARKD Car Park System is designed to be fully re-used in existing or new configurations, offering clients full flexibility in the future.
The nimble design allows the client to consider a raft of options for the site in the future. The structure can be partially or fully relocated and reused in similar or different configuration. The structure has high ground to first level clearance, planning for other uses in the future if desired.
This project was ground-breaking, and most activities involved new techniques and processes which the PARKD team had to step through for the first time.
PARKD won the award for Outstanding New Car Park Development at the 2019 Parking Industry Awards held by Parking Australia. The award recognises the extraordinary technology that this solution offers the market, by making car park construction rapid and cost effective, and providing a reusable and relocatable structure. Feedback from the Award Judges described the modular system as ‘a really exciting development’ for the parking industry.