WARREN, Ohio – The fate of AutoParkit LLC’s headquarters here remains unknown following the listing of the company’s three buildings with a local real estate agency.
Platz Realty Group in Canfield is marketing the properties – 310 and 408 Dana St. and 650 Griswold St. – for sale or lease, according to a Platz brochure.
The properties went on the market within the past two weeks, according to Shea MacMillan, a Platz real estate agent handling the properties. He said he was unable to provide any further information.
Christopher Alan, AutoParkit’s president and CEO, had sought to have the section of Dana Street near its buildings closed permanently to convert the area into a gated manufacturing campus. In October, members of City Council voted to reopen Dana Street after eight years.
Alan had threatened last year to put the properties up for sale if council members didn’t vote to keep the road closed, at least temporarily, said Mike Keys, city community development director. Employees were still working out of the facility Thursday, he confirmed.
In October 2015, Alan announced plans for a multimillion-dollar project in buildings once owned by Delphi Packard Electric, plans that included engineering and manufacturing operations as well as a new headquarters for the California-based company.
AutoParkit, a subsidiary of Alan’s Dasher Lawless LLC, designs and manufactures automated parking systems used in major municipal markets such as Los Angeles and Detroit. The company also has diversified into other products, such as developing mobile charging units for electric vehicles and eventually electric boats and an adapted version of its AutoParkit systems for the marine industry.
In June, members of City Council toured the Dana Street property. During the visit, Alan provided an update on the project, which he said had experienced delays including problems with acquiring the property and setbacks caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The company has accumulated $20.4 million in payroll since it began hiring in 2019, he told council members and media representatives in attendance. In 2024, total payroll for the company that year stood at approximately $6.5 million, according to data the company provided at the meeting.
In addition, the company has paid out nearly $400,000 in property taxes, invested $6 million in property improvements and spent $4.3 million on local purchases and subcontractor services.
Keys said he is meeting with an AutoParkit manager on an unrelated matter Wednesday, and he expects to set a meeting with Alan soon regarding his plans for the property.
“People don’t realize how much work he’s putting in up there and how much money is invested just because they don’t see it, the jobs he set up there, versus what it used to be – a falling-down building that would have been a $7 million cleanup for us,” Keys said. “I understand he’s frustrated. There’s nothing I can do about what council’s decisions are, but I will try to meet with him and see if we can come up with some kind of common ground to move forward.”
Representatives of AutoParkit and Dasher Lawless, including Alan, did not respond to requests for comment.