It looks like the city’s first parking garage to support the downtown arena will go near Biggs Avenue and Main Street.
It’s confirmed it’s buying the building where the Longshots sports bar currently is, without an expropriation.
It’ll be used for the same purpose as the old Mrs. B’s restaurant, which in the long term will likely be a parking garage.
“This would be a good location for parking,” said the downtown redevelopment’s executive director Ron Taylor, “because it’s close to the arena. It’s also close to the [Peter Pond] shopping centre, and to Macdonald Avenue which we expect to have a significant clustering of restaurants and retail.”
Taylor says the garage would likely have about 600 stalls; but the redevelopment expects private investment to create additional parking capacity, including office buildings whose daytime parking can be used at night for events.
But Taylor says in the short term, the Biggs Avenue properties can also be used to house organizations that are displaced by expropriation – but only temporarily.
“So for example, the new arena will have 30-odd thousand square feet of retail in it,” he said. “We expect as that is built, those businesses will be ideal candidates to move back into the retail that’s in the arena, or into other new buildings that are being built.”
Several non-profit organizations will be displaced when the city completes all of its downtown expropriations, as will longtime businesses like Campbell’s Music. The city has previously said it would make efforts to find alternate locations for affected organizations.
In addition, Taylor says the properties on Biggs could be used for construction staging when the arena is being built; such as equipment storage, lay-down sites, and construction offices.
Longshots announced yesterday that it’s closing down this fall.
May 30, 2013
