A multistorey car park (Commonwealth English) or parking garage (American English), also called a multistorey, parking building, parking structure, parkade (Canadian), parking ramp, parking deck, or indoor parking, is a building designed for car, motorcycle, and bicycle parking in which parking takes place on more than one floor or level. The first known multistorey facility was built in London in 1901 and the first underground parking was built in Barcelona in 1904 (see history). The term multistorey (or multistory) is almost never used in the United States, because almost all parking structures have multiple parking levels. Parking structures may be heated if they are enclosed.
Design of parking structures can add considerable cost for planning new developments, with costs in the United States around $28,000 per space and $56,000 per space for underground (excluding the cost of land), and can be required by cities in parking mandates for new buildings. Some cities such as London have abolished previously enacted minimum parking requirements. Minimum parking requirements are a hallmark of zoning and planning codes for municipalities in the US. (States do not prescribe parking requirements, while counties and cities can).
