The hand-washing station has a "warming device" for water. Toilet paper is automatically dispensed. The soft jazz sounds of "What The World Needs Now Is Love" and other tunes play over a speaker.

Not bad for a public toilet.

The official term is "automatic public facility." Atlanta is placing five of them around the city: at City Hall, Piedmont Park, Woodruff Park, Fire Station 4 on Edgewood Avenue and Fire Station 21 on Roswell Road.

A private company working under the supervision of the city's Public Works Department is installing the units. The restrooms, and the two-year maintenance contract for them, cost $1.5 million. The money came from the Atlanta Development Authority's Homeless Opportunity Fund.

The restrooms are part of Mayor Shirley Franklin's commitment to a commission on homelessness, which said the city needed more public restrooms.

Commission member Bill Bolling has pushed for them since the early 1990s.

"I think for people who don't have access to public facilities, it's important," said Bolling, executive director of the Atlanta Community Food Bank. "I think having a clean, sanitized place is something we all deserve as citizens."

Some Piedmont Park aficionados, like Paul McCafferty, understand the need for the restrooms but hate the location.

McCafferty lives nearby and visits the park at least once a day, using the Charles Allen Drive entrance. He complained that the new restroom, which recently arrived and is to be put into operation next week, blocks the view of the rolling lawn.

"It totally changes my perspective when I enter and leave the park," McCafferty said. "It doesn't seem to fit in well with the rest of the park."

The city's Urban Design Commission and the local Neighborhood Planning Unit chose the location, according to the Piedmont Park Conservancy, a non-profit group that helps preserve the park.

With its silver exterior and buttons to the left of the door, the restrooms look like elevators. A device can sense "dead weight" and open the doors, primarily to prevent loitering. A porcelain interior ensures the easy removal of graffiti. And the units are built to last —30 years, city officials say.

Other cities with the facilities include New York, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Seattle. MARTA has 12 similar self-cleaning toilets at the Five Points station.

Atlanta resident Mark West used the one at City Hall on a recent afternoon after making a work delivery.

"It was nice. It was convenient. I was totally surprised," said West, 28.

Johnny Copenny, a Piedmont Park security guard patrolling in a golf cart on a recent afternoon, said parkgoers constantly ask him about the yet-to-be-opened toilet, unsure what it is.

Copenny compares them to Transformers, the characters of the TV cartoon series and last summer's hit movie that look like cars or trucks but can turn themselves into fighting machines and battle each other like gladiators.

"It locks itself. It cleans itself," he said. "They're like automatic robots."