Photo courtesy CRDA (artist rendering)

ATLANTIC CITY — The New Jersey Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA) has completed the parking garage project located on Fairmount Avenue between Christopher Columbus Boulevard and Mississippi Avenue in A.C. A ribbon-cutting ceremony to officially open the garage is scheduled for Thursday, March 15, at 1:30pm, at which time a new name for the building will also be unveiled.

At a cost of $30 million, the five-story building has six levels of parking with 1,180 parking spaces, and covers 411,690 square feet including 16,170 square feet of retail space.  The garage is conveniently located in the city’s Midtown District. It is visible and easily accessed from the Atlantic City Expressway and is convenient to a variety of the city’s main attractions including Boardwalk Hall, Tanger Outlets – The Walk, the Atlantic City Convention Center and the Ducktown neighborhood.

The garage will serve as the centerpiece to the development of the future Arts & Entertainment District. The building was designed to be the first and last impression that visitors experience as they travel to and from Atlantic City through this center corridor.

The project was started in late 2010 by general  contractor L. Feriozzi of Ventnor. It has created 170 new jobs and includes energy efficient lighting throughout, six electric vehicle charging stations, and a 54,000 square-foot rooftop solar array consisting of 1,677 solar panels.

“This state-of-the-art garage and retail space will provide efficient parking resources to the surrounding businesses in the Tourism District,” says CRDA executive director John Palmieri in a media release. “The inclusion of art and retail space at street level creates a pedestrian friendly and safe environment for visitors and residents alike.”

The new garage will be managed and operated by Standard Parking, a leading national provider of parking facility management. A partnership with South Jersey Transportation Authority allows for the acceptance of the E-Z Pass Plus in the new garage.

Boomerang Systems installed a 460-space robotic parking system at Park Terrace condo complex in Hudson County, similar to the one it hopes to install at a proposed condo high-rise in Atlantic City.

ATLANTIC CITY — According to an article at marketwatch.com, a Philadelphia developer purchased the one-acre lot just north of the Revel site — off the Boardwalk between Rhode Island and Metropolitan avenues, which once encompassed the since-demolished Oceanside Convalescent Center — and has plans to build a 30-story, 124-unit luxury condominium complex.

Referred to as the Metropolitan Project, plans also call for an automated parking system and 4,400 square feet of retail space. The owner/developer, Cherry Hill-based Lazocean, originally pitched plans for the land three years ago to the Atlantic City Planning Board, but the board rejected them citing certain concerns. Lazocean tweaked the plans and was in the process of re-submitting the revisions when the state-run Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA) took over planning powers in the newly created Tourism District, where the one-acre plot is located.

According to published reports, the CRDA was receptive to the idea of Lazocean’s plans, which now include three levels of parking and 249 spaces that would be controlled by the RoboticValet Parking Systems — a component of the northern New Jersey-based Boomerang Systems, Inc., which designs, installs and services automated robotic parking and self-storage systems. Original plans three years ago called for an 86-unit building and 298 traditional parking spaces. According to the company’s Web site (boomerangsystems.com), similar systems were installed at developments in Sussex and Hudson counties (in northern N.J.), but this would be the first installed in southern N.J.

The decision to accept or reject Lazocean’s plans will be made during the CRDA’s next meeting on March 20. If approved, Chip Pressman, head of development for Lazocean (and the Philadelphia-based CSP Realty, Inc.) was quoted as saying that plans are to break ground in early 2013 and to open the condo complex in 2014.