Residents at Diploma Group's latest city apartment development no longer have to stress about finding an empty parking space when they come home - the carpark does it for them.
Diploma's Zenith City Centro apartment development on Hay Street features a Western Australian first; a fully automated car stacking system in place of a traditional car park.
The Japanese-designed car stacker system was necessary because of tight space constraints on the site and was built for a cost of around $3 million.
It takes residents approximately 90 seconds to load or retrieve a car from the stacker, which has the capacity to park 141 cars.
"It is the first time a system of this size has been introduced in WA, possibly Australia, and we received the building license back in 2008 before the technology was widely recognised as it is today," Diploma chief executive Nick Di Latte said.
"After several years of design and construction it is great to see the system in operation and we look forward to implementing it across a number of our future inner city projects."
Diploma said it was planning another car stacker in its next apartment development, iSpire.
Perth-based engineering firm Agito assembled the system from 300 tonnes of steel.
Allegro Realty managing director Peter Gianoli said the system had been well received by purchasers at Zenith City Centro.
"Now that the first residents have moved in, we are conducting regular demonstrations for new residents and they are realising just how simple it is to use," Mr Gianoli said.
"Having the system in operation highlights to potential purchasers the benefits of the automated system, and Zenith City Centro will be a powerful sales tool for future Diploma projects which are also earmarked to include automated parking systems."