Century City has gotten its first electric car charging stations in the Watt Plaza building on Century Park East.

"We just rolled these out," said the building's General Manager Cameron Benson, noting that the timing was perfect with Earth Day on April 21.

The two stations, located on the garage's first floor, will accommodate up to three cars, although only two parking spaces are currently reserved for use. Benson explained that an extra space will be added when demand grows for the station.

"As our needs increase, so will our supply," she said. The building currently has approximately 2100 tenants.

"You have the luxury of using it for the maximum time of seven hours," said Joseph Marcinek, the property manager at the building, meaning that a tenant can be charging a car while at work. But there's also the expectation that not all cars will have depleted batteries when they arrive. "If a tenant comes in, he or she may use the station for only two or three hours."

Marcinek said that the station, which works through the ChargePoint Network of charging stations, can alert users by text message that their car is fully charged. 

"We've had a couple tenants call us and ask if we would put in a charging station," Benson said.

Parking manager Tony Martinez said that he, also, had received requests for the stations. "I have two tenants that have Chevy Volts," he said.

Installing the stations seemed like a logical next step for the building, which is already has a Gold LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Benson explained that her employer, Watt Companies, has a strong interest in providing clean technology and environmental solutions. "We want to be on the cutting edge," she said.

When asked why build a station when it seemed like there was so little demand, Benson agreed that to a certain extent, the infrastructure needs to be in place to create the demand for electric vehicles.

"If you build it, they will come," she said, quoting the movie. "We're trying to be the Field of Dreams."

The two stations installed charge $3 for each hour of charging, with seven hours going for $20. One charges at 120V, meaning a longer charge time, and the other is a quicker charge at 240 V. Martinez said that ChargePoint cards, which use bar codes, can be purchased through the company's website at mychargepoint.net, or through the parking office, at a substantial discount.

Also, customers can use their MasterCard or Visa, if they have the versions that are contact-less, meaning they get waved in front of a reader to process rather than run through a slot.