Boy am I am glad that I found this place. Had I not have discovered this facility I would have no where to store my Ferrari. (OK, maybe I do not have a Ferrari, but if I had one, I would be storing it here.) Within these four walls that can withstand category five hurricane winds, lies an automatic retrieval system with the ability to store anything from sports cars to wine collections. This place caught my attention immediately with it’s impressive design and unheard of technologies. The facility is located in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and is scheduled to open the first part of June.
The facility that I am talking about is RoboVault. It is a high tech storage facility that can most be compared to that of a maximum security prison. RoboVault is an automated storage facility that can store anything you think of in its thick, guarded walls. Have a baseball card collection? What about a collection of rare red wines? Maybe you have a fancy sports car that you do not want to risk damaging. Never fear, RoboVault is here! But do not think you will have immediate access to your goods. You are not even allowed into the facility itself. The folks at RoboVault are cutting down on the risk of damage and theft in every way possible. To gain access to even your own goods you have to go through quite an extensive process first. This includes retinal eye scans, personal pass codes, and finger prints.
The facility offers various storage spaces ranging in size. And for that wine collection, don’t worry, the rooms are controlled of that of a wine cellar for those expensive bottles of liquid goodness. But the most impressive thing to me is the sheer size of the building and how it all has come together. A man by the name of Marvin Chaney developed the facility and has been working in the storage business for many years. But he had never worked with something quite like this. It literally is the first high-tech, robotic self-storage facility in the world.
On their website, which you can get to by clicking on the image (did you notice who developed this website?) you can view information about the facility and even see a video of how the German based crane will retrieve your valuables. You can contact the facility directly and even set up a tour to see how all of this works. (I want to tour this place so bad!)
The main reason I am so impressed, again, is the concept behind this. With funding from BankAtlantic you begin to wonder how much this place cost to build, let alone the cost of the crane and the security system running through this place. With what does not seem like an over whelming number of employees, RoboVault is set to open from literally the ground up.
(On a side note, let’s just say that you have a car stored here. Your flight lands and you do not want to go through the process of retrieving your ride. You can simply call in and have your car ready for you when you arrive at the facility. Talk about customer service.)
What does this say about the future of not only storage, but parking garages? What about banks? I even can see this leading to something even more simple; automated grocery shopping. We are replacing cashiers with computers. We are replacing restaurants with touch pads. We are replacing Blockbuster with RedBox. So why not replace parking garages with RoboVault?
Take a look around the website. There is a lot more content that you will be seeing in the upcoming months. The facility is not even open yet and I already want to take a vacation to see the impressive structure. This says a lot about modern day architecture too, as this entire building has a certain feel to it. I just look at mock up drawings and computer animations and I already want to buy a space in the facility.
I wonder if they can protect my Beanie Baby collection.
