A multi-storey car-park, also called a parking garage, parking structure, parking ramp,
parkade, parking building or parking deck, is a building designed for car parking and
where there are a number of floors or levels on which parking takes place. It is
essentially a stacked car park.
The earliest known multi-storey car park 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. Jupiter Realty Corp. of
Chicago is constructing a 49-storey apartment tower in its place, with construction
underway as of March 2008.
An alternative claim has emerged from Glasgow, Scotland, for a building that was built
between 1906 and 1912.
In the 1920s an English cartoonist imagined a hotel for cars; he drew a multi-storey car
park.
Car parks which serve shopping centres can be built adjacent to the centre for easier
access at each floor between shops and parking. One example is Mall of America in
Bloomington, Minnesota, USA, which has two large car parks attached to the building, at
the eastern and western ends. A common position for car parks within shopping centres in
the UK is on the roof, around the various utility systems, enabling customers to take
lifts straight down into the centre. Examples of such are The Oracle in Reading and
Festival Place in Basingstoke.
Parking structures are subjected to the heavy and shifting loads of moving vehicles, and
must bear the associated physical stresses. Expansion joints are used between sections
not only for thermal expansion but to accommodate the flexing of the structure's
sections due to vehicle traffic. Seismic retrofits can be applied where earthquakes are
an issue.
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