Is it time for a parkade?

Photo: Colin Dacre

Can downtown Penticton support a multi-level parkade?

City staff hope to answer that question this year with a $26,000 feasibility study proposed in this year’s budget due to go before council next week.

The city is hoping to determine if it would be advantageous to consolidate downtown parking in one location in an attempt to use the neighbourhood’s land more efficiently.

The city recently purchased the old Greyhound bus depot — prime downtown real estate — with plans to tear it down for parking space in the short term. It also holds and operates several other downtown parking lots on property ripe for development.

A 2017 study into downtown parking found that the close to 4,000 parking stalls in the area are just 45 per cent utilized, well short of the 70-80 per cent usually needed to warrant the construction of a parkade.

If approved by council, city staff say the parkade study would dig deeper into the financial feasibility of the idea.

A study last year into parking at the South Okanagan Events Centre rejected the need for a parkade there, but the city says the downtown core, which is used 365 days a year, is a very different situation.

Multi-level parkades can end up costing anywhere between $25,000 and $35,000 per stall to construct. The six-storey, 519-stall Memorial parkade in Kelowna opened in 2017 at a cost of $14.9 million.