City Gateway will soon be home to Raleigh's first fully automated parking facility. Instead of circling a garage looking for a space, you'll simply pull into a ground-level bay, step out, and let the building do the rest.

Here's how it works. When you arrive, you drive into one of the facility's load bays, put the car in park, and walk away. Sensors confirm the vehicle is positioned and the bay is clear, then the AUTOParkit system — developed by Dasher Lawless Automation — lifts your car on a pallet and moves it to an open storage position inside the structure. No ramps, no attendants driving your car, no walking through a dim deck to find it.

When you're ready to leave, request your vehicle from the mobile app or a kiosk in the lobby. The system retrieves your car and delivers it back to a bay, facing outward and ready to drive off. Your car is never touched by another person and is stored in a secure, enclosed environment the entire time.

Because the system stacks vehicles far more densely than a conventional garage, City Gateway fits roughly 228 spaces on a footprint that would otherwise hold a fraction of that. And because the entire facility sits below grade, its roof becomes something a parking deck almost never is: a place people actually want to be. Level with the Kindley Street sidewalk, the rooftop plaza will be the central open space of City Gateway — an outdoor room where the hotel, the street, and the rest of the district come together.

Now under construction, the facility is scheduled to be operational in 2027.