Inside a high-tech parking garage where robot valets park your car.

Hidden inside a 46-story luxury condominium building in Miami is a giant garage where dozens of busy robots keep cars moving in and out of parking spaces.

The futuristic 24/7 operation spans a 13-level garage and houses five car elevators, dozens of lasers and hundreds of barcodes in the floor. Residents who pull into one of the building’s five drive-up bays save valuable time searching for a space, instead handing over their vehicles to robo-valets who park cars for them.

It all goes inside Brickell House, which has about 375 condo residences and the largest and highest automated parking system of its kind, according to its developer, ParkPlus.

Automated parking is a growing trend in high-end real estate, with buildings from New York to Miami now equipped with kiosks, car lifts and car parking robots. A coveted space inside some luxury Manhattan condos can start at $300,000. Meanwhile, a real estate agent who is a Five bedroom penthouse in Brickell House The $15 million asking price includes five parking spaces in the sci-fi-like structure, told CNBC.

These innovative parking facilities are part of the so-called smart parking market, which includes a wide range of solutions from automated parking to digital payment systems. According to Grandview Research, the global smart parking market was valued at $6.5 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $30.16 billion by 2030, with a major share of the market in North America.

A representative from Park Plus told CNBC that demand for state-of-the-art automated systems in the U.S., like the one at Brickell House, is being driven mostly by luxury residential projects in high-density urban metros, while car dealerships , hospitals, hotels, parking facilities, private car collectors and private residences often opt for mechanical systems that are generally less advanced.

Brick House Garage, which is off limits to humans, is controlled by 29 robots known as Automated Guided Vehicles, or AGVs for short.

AGVs are basically free-roaming, self-charging, robo-parkers that use vision systems, lifts and lasers to accurately park and retrieve vehicles. They are 12 feet tall and 4 feet wide, with a steel platform that sits just 10 inches above the floor.

Hidden beneath each powerful machine, which can tow vehicles up to 6,000 pounds, are eight wheels, flashing flashing lights and an electronic eye that can read barcodes embedded in the floor for guidance.

The nimble robots appear to slide under the car and effortlessly move it across floors and in and out of car lifts. They adhere to a calculated division of labor: some AGVs only move cars on and off elevators, others are tasked with moving cars onto floors and into spaces. A vehicle entering or exiting the system can be handled by up to three AGVs that move the vehicle from one robot companion to another.

And because there’s no human to get in or out of the car, parking can be very precise, squeezing cars into spots with only 2 inches of space between them.

During CNBC’s visit to the Park Plus system, Our team rigged a Ferrari 488 Spider with cameras and recorded the automatic recovery process.. He traveled from the ninth level of the garage to the basement bay in less than four minutes.

According to ParkPlus, the system has been rigorously tested to minimize risk and operation: The robots have proven they can quickly move 15 vehicles in and out of a garage for 40 hours without a hiccup.

The cost of an automated system like Brick House varies widely by building, but Park Plus Florida President Peter Manns said the range is typically $20,000 to $80,000 per space.

This cost is more than what a developer has already spent to build the garage level of the building. Munis declined to say the exact cost of the system installed at Brickell House, but Munis’ estimated cost range for a garage-sized parking lot puts the cost anywhere between $8 million and $32 million.

A key driver for a building developer to pump millions into their parking garage automation is the system’s ability to maximize valuable square footage. Munis told CNBC that in some cases an automated system can improve square footage three times better than an old-school garage.

“You don’t have a driving ramp, you don’t have a turn, you don’t have two different lanes and you can squeeze them right next to each other,” Manis said.

Better-utilized space for parking can mean a developer needs fewer floors dedicated to vehicles — freeing up square footage for residences and potentially increasing apartment sales.

As with any new technology, there are naturally some early-stage pain points.

Billionaire Palmer Luckey, who founded virtual reality company Oculus VR and military weapons maker Andorel Industries, filed a lawsuit earlier this year after he got stuck in an elevator in his private garage.

Lucky bought a Newport Beach, California, mansion and converted it into a multi-level garage with an elevator and scissor lifts to store his car. In a lawsuit filed against Lucky’s builder and subcontractor, the billionaire said the elevator “repeatedly stopped its vertical motion without warning and trapped its occupants.”

According to the filing, the mansion-turned-garage is now unusable and Lucky suffered “millions of dollars in damages, with an exact amount that will be proven at trial.”

In response, the builder’s attorney told CNBC that his client has filed a cross-complaint alleging that the lift and elevators are the responsibility of a special subcontractor, who Palmer personally approved to build the elevators. . Meanwhile, the subcontractor filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit claims and did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Back in Miami, Brickell House had its own headline-making parking nightmare. In 2016, long before the new AGV system was installed, the condo association filed a complaint against the building’s developer about a parking system it claimed never worked properly. Residents’ cars were allegedly caught in the system, which was installed by a now-bankrupt parking company, and the garage was eventually closed, leaving the building for years, according to the lawsuit. Until left without parking on site.

“The failure of [previous] The system was the Achilles heel of our industry,” said Paul Bates, President of Park Plus Group.

A jury awarded the condo association more than $40 million in damages, according to court documents. This is one of the largest construction defect verdicts in Florida history.

The condominium association, which declined to discuss past litigation with CNBC, also reportedly received a $32 million insurance settlement on the system.

For Bates, the new ParkPlus system at Brickell House, which begins in 2022, helped close a dark chapter in automated parking.

“Bricklehouse, and these familiar concerns, have pushed the industry to focus on innovation, improving system reliability, and reducing risk,” Bates said.