Charles & Benton Parking Structure
Charles Street East & Benton Street, Kitchener
www.downtownkitchener.ca/news/parkinggarage
Website
Charles & Benton Parking Structure
Charles Street East & Benton Street, Kitchener
www.downtownkitchener.ca/news/parkinggarage
Website
http://www.kitchener.ca/Files/Item/i..._structure.pdf
http://www.kitchener.ca/Files/Item/i...iness_case.pdf
http://www.kitchener.ca/Files/Item/i...n_analysis.pdf
RECOMMENDATIONS:
That the development of a 500 space above ground parking structure on an existing City owned surface parking lot at the north west corner of Charles and Benton Streets be approved; and further,
That the consultant selection process be waived and that the firm of Read Jones Christoffersen be retained to modify the existing design of a parking structure for this site; and further,
That ground floor retail be included in the design of this structure on the Benton Street frontage; and further,
That a Letter of Intent be agreed to by the Province of Ontario and the City of Kitchener outlining the commitment of each organization to this project, subject to the satisfaction of the City Solicitor.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
The consolidation of three Provincial court facilities into one development on the block bound by Frederick Street, Weber Street, Scott Street and Duke Street will result in the development of a 340,000 sq ft court building and bring new employment to the core.
The Province will supply 290 parking spaces on site for staff and have agreed to contribute $6,475,000 as cash in lieu payment for the 185 remaining spaces required to meet the parking requirements of the zoning bylaw. The estimated number of spaces have been based on initial design concepts and will be refined at the site plan submission stage. In addition, approximately 370 existing surface parking spaces will be lost due to the development and a portion of them will need to be accommodated in a new facility within a reasonable distance.
Construction of the new courthouse will begin at the end of 2009 or early in 2010 and is contingent on the City being able to assist in accommodating the parking needs of existing and future customers of this site.
A number of potential parking options were considered to address this demand and the preferred option is to construct a 500 space above ground structure on a City owned surface parking lot at the north west corner of Benton Street and Charles Street.
Intensification options were considered, including the provision of ground floor retail along the Benton Street frontage and allowing for the future development of a residential or office use above the structure. To assist in determining if greater intensification is feasible, the City’s real estate provider, Coldwell Banker Peter Benninger Realty, was retained to gauge the market for this type of development. Their analysis indicated that while ground floor retail is reasonable, the market for residential and office uses above the structure in the future was not strong, and the cost and risk that the City would need to incur could not be justified.
A functional design and tender package had been prepared in 2002 in anticipation of constructing this garage at that time. Due to cost overruns as a result of the tender, it was never built, but the design with minor modifications is still reasonable and can be built within the time lines required to satisfy the demand for parking from the future courthouse site. The firm of
Read Jones Christoffersen, who were the lead consultants on the original design, are recommended to continue with this project and that the consultant selection process be waived. Their intimate knowledge of the design, the availability of drawings and their commitment to completing a project started a number of years ago will prove to be the most efficient approach.
Funding for this project will be a combination of the cash in lieu payment from the Province along with a debenture for the remaining costs.
BACKGROUND:
The Province has announced that a new consolidated courthouse will be developed on lands bounded by Frederick Street, Weber Street, Scott Street and Duke Street in an area that is currently used for surface parking.
The Province will develop approximately 290 parking spaces underground, but will still require an additional 185 spaces to meet our Zoning Bylaw parking requirements. They have agreed to contribute $6,475,000 in cash in lieu payments to offset this parking shortfall.
In addition, approximately 370 existing surface parking spaces will be lost from the development of the Courthouse, which will need to be accommodated within reasonable proximity.
http://www.kitchener.ca/charlesbenton/
Charles Benton Parking Garage Construction
See alternative parking during construction - http://www.kitchener.ca/pdf/parking_map.pdf
Charles and Benton Update May 11, 2009 - http://www.kitchener.ca/pdf/parking_...2009_05_11.pdf
The Charles and Benton lot will be closed Feb. 17, 2009 - Spring 2010 to construct a 500-space parking lot. The City of Kitchener will build a new six-storey, 500 space, above-ground parking garage at the northwest corner of Charles and Benton Streets.
The garage, which will help meet a growing demand for parking in the downtown – including some of the parking needs of the new downtown courthouse – will cost approximately $16 million, with the work scheduled to be completed by Spring 2010. The province will help fund the construction of the parking garage by providing the city with $6.475 million for cash in lieu of parking.
The garage will include new retail space on the main floor of the garage facing Benton Street. The design of the new garage will also include the concept of the warehouse theme with large windows based on prominent buildings from other areas of the downtown, the use of red brick and the inclusion of the metal structural screen for a portion of the Charles Street façade.
Tentative Construction Timeline:
- Lot closes for construction Feb. 17, 2009 – Spring 2010.
- Garage grand opening Spring 2010
Last edited by Spokes; 07-18-2010 at 09:11 AM.
City approves $16 million parking garage
June 17, 2008
RECORD STAFF - KITCHENER
City councillors yesterday approved a $16 million parking garage for the corner of Benton and Charles streets that could be open by November 2009.
City staff said the 500-space garage is needed soon because the Ontario government has announced it will build a 340,000-square-foot courthouse on the block bounded by Duke, Scott, Weber and Frederick streets.
The courthouse requires 690 parking spaces.
The province will build 290 parking spaces on the site of the new courthouse, and it is counting on the city to provide the remainder or risk losing the project.
"Should the city not be able to provide the parking as stated above, then the province could move to the next preferred site. Staff are not aware of where that site is, but it is not within downtown
"Kitchener and could result in the closure of both existing court houses and the movement of ancillary jobs that support them," says a report prepared by city staff.
The province has agreed to provide $6.5 million for remaining 185 spaces it needs for the courthouse, and the city wants to use that money to help pay for a new parking garage at Benton and Charles streets.
"Construction of the new courthouse will begin at the end of 2009 or early in 2010 and is contingent on the city being able to assist in accommodating the parking needs of existing and future customers of this site," says the staff report.
One of the downtown's biggest landlords is the CORA Group, which sold the province the land for the new courthouse. CORA needs 370 parking spaces to replace the ones it will lose in the deal.
"CORA can accommodate a portion of theses spaces within their existing parking facilities, but will require 200 monthly spaces in the proposed Charles and Benton parking garage to meet their contractual obligations with existing tenants," says the city report.
"They have committed to a 20-year lease for 200 monthly parking spaces at full market value in the proposed structure," says the report.
For years city staff have wanted to build a parking garage at Charles and Benton streets, where the city now owns a parking lot.
But when the project went out for tender in 2002 the bids came in so far over budget the project was put on hold.
In one day city councillors approved the spending of nearly $25 million on downtown parking garages -- $16 million for the above-ground garage at Benton and Charles, and $8.75 million for 250 spaces in an underground garage to be built on Centre Block, which is near City Hall.
Long-stalled parking garage plan gains speed
July 02, 2008
Terry Pender, RECORD STAFF - KITCHENER
City councillors are moving quickly to build a 500-spot parking garage at Charles and Benton streets in the downtown.
And all taxpayers -- not just drivers -- will pay for the $15-million garage, now that council has rejected setting up a parking authority to help with the financing.
To speed things along, councillors waived the requirement to seek competitive proposals before choosing a consultant on the project. The consultant has already been paid about $400,000.
The city will borrow $9 million to pay for the garage, which is to have shops at ground level. When interest payments are included, the city's share of the cost rises to $15 million.
The province will kick in $6 million, an inducement that prompted the city to revive dormant plans for a parking garage on that corner.
Plans for the garage at Benton and Charles surfaced after the province announced it will build a 340,00-square-foot courthouse on the block bounded by Scott, Weber, Frederick and Duke streets. It will need 690 parking spaces.
Coun. John Gazzola proposed establishing a parking authority, with the idea of using parking revenue to pay for parking facilities.
"And if we did that, then the users would have to pay for it, and it wouldn't impact the taxpayers," Gazzola said to council recently.
"On one side of our mouths, we are arguing about the environment and how we have to get people out of their cars, and then we are building parking garages for them," Gazzola said.
Mayor Carl Zehr said he, too, would like to see a parking authority. But parking rates are not high enough to bring in the kind of revenue that could support parking operations, he said.
"It has to make financial sense so that it has a reasonable chance of standing on its own," Zehr said.
Coun. Berry Vrbanovic said it doesn't make sense to create a parking authority that would need tax dollars anyway.
The city plans to call for construction bids as soon as possible and hopes work on the garage will begin in November.
Kitchener parking operations have long been heavily subsidized by taxpayers. Parking operations were budgeted in 2007 for a deficit of $1.8 million.
The deficit would increase if council agreed to provide more free parking in the core, which some downtown merchants are now lobbying for.
The province plans to build 290 parking spaces as part of the courthouse plan and is counting on the city to provide the other 400 spaces. City staff say the province could move the courthouse to another municipality if Kitchener doesn't agree.
Construction of the courthouse will start in late 2009 or early 2010. The city aims to have the new parking garage open by November 2009.
The garage at Charles and Benton streets is not the only one on the books.
The city also plans to pay $8.75 million for 250 public spaces on the first level of an underground parking garage on Centre Block, which is next to City Hall. But many of those spaces could be occupied by the faculty and students at the nearby Wilfrid Laurier University graduate school of social work. To attract the school to the core, the city agreed to provide 175 parking spaces for the faculty and students at the subsidized price of $20 a month per space.
The garage at Benton and Charles will be built with no public consultations, something Mark Garner, head of the Kitchener Downtown Business Association, doesn't like.
"We should have been in the loop and communicated with when this was going on," Garner said.
Downtown merchants believe there is a shortage of parking that has to be solved, he said.
The garages at Benton and Charles and on Centre Block should look after those concerns, he said.
Now that councillors have approved those two garages, there is a pressing need for a debate about long-term plans for parking and transportation downtown, Garner said.
"I always thought it would be great to have King Street as an entire, I wouldn't say like the Red Mile in Calgary, but a closed-off street where it's just walking and caf?s."
Critics who see adding parking to downtowns as a waste of resources weren't impressed with Kitchener's plans.
"The future is not going to be about car storage," said James Howard Kunstler, author of The Geography of Nowhere and a board member of the non-profit Project for Public Spaces.
Cynthia Nitkin, also of Project for Public Spaces, who has spoken in Waterloo Region, suggested a parking problem is a healthy sign.
"It means people want to stop and shop."
But parking shortages are often just a perception, not a reality, she said. In fact, Kitchener's consultants say about 20 per cent of the public parking spaces downtown are empty at the busiest times of the day.
Instead of building parking garages or providing more free parking on the public's dime, the city and downtown merchants should worry more about product selection, marketing, displays, organizing festivals and other programming for public spaces, Nitkin said.
In Canada, Calgary hasn't built a parking garage in the core in more than 25 years. Parkades were built around the downtown, and people can ride the light rail for free in the core.
"Once you start tipping away from the car, a lot of interesting things happen," Nitkin said.
BENTON AND CHARLES
- For 45 years, the land is a surface lot with 81 spaces -- 21 monthly, 60 hourly.
- In 2002, city seeks bids for construction of a 525-space, five-storey parking garage on the site. The estimated cost is $8.1 million, and when the lowest tender comes in at $12.4 million, the project is shelved.
- In 2003, Kitchener calls for expressions of interest in building the garage with city help. City offers to provide $3 million to $4 million, waive development and permit fees, and co-ordinate parking rates at city-owned lots. No takers.
- In June 2008, the province announces it will build a new courthouse downtown if the city provides 400 parking spaces.
- June 2008, the city announces a parking garage will go up at Benton and Charles. Public hearings, normally required for downtown projects of that size, will not be held.
Kitchener council approves deals for parking garage
September 16, 2008
Record staff - Web edition
http://news.therecord.com/News/article/415558
KITCHENER - City councillors approved deals Monday night to accommodate users of a new provincial courthouse and CORA Group employees in a planned downtown parking garage.
The new garage, at the corner of Charles and Benton streets, will provide 400 hourly-paid spaces to meet the demands of the courthouse.
In exchange, the province will provide about $6.5 million toward the garage's $15-million construction.
Councillors also agreed to lease another 200 parking spaces to the CORA Group, which is being displaced by the construction of the future courthouse.
Kitchener embarks on parking expansion
Project will add 500 spots at Benton and Charles; funds to be borrowed for Centre Block parking
December 22, 2008
Terry Pender, RECORD STAFF - KITCHENER
http://news.therecord.com/News/Canad...article/462271
A company has been hired to build a downtown-parking garage with 500 spaces at the corner of Benton and Charles streets.
Melloul-Blamey Construction Inc. of Waterloo won the contract, bidding $15.3 million to build the multi-storey structure on city-owned land.
For more than eight years city bureaucrats have wanted to build a parking garage in the core. City councillors always balked at the costs, but that changed when the province announced it would provide $6.5 million.
"These are dollars that the taxpayers of the City of Kitchener do not have to incur at this point in time," Coun. Berry Vrbanovic, chair of the finance committee, said of the provincial funds.
The province wants to ensure there is adequate parking for a new provincial courthouse being built on the block bounded by Frederick, Duke, Scott and Weber streets.
In 2009, the city will borrow an additional $9.5 million to build the parking garage.
"We knew that we needed to build a garage in the downtown, the timing of it right now is directly related to the provincial court house," Vrbanovic said.
The Charles and Benton parking garage will include 2,000 square feet of retail space facing Benton and some secure bicycle parking inside.
Many of the parking spaces are already taken. The Cora Group, a large property-management and development firm based in the downtown, will lease 200 spaces in the garage.
When interest payments are included, the garage will cost about $22 million. But Vrbanovic said parking revenues should pay for the garage.
The city also plans to borrow $5.5 million in 2009 for an underground parking garage on Centre Block, which is bounded by King, Young, Duke and Ontario streets. If the block is redeveloped with condominiums, the city wants to be ready with its share of the costs for the parking garage, Vrbanovic said.
"This is simply setting aside funds for that project," Vrbanovic said.
City officials continue negotiations for a development agreement with Andrin Limited of Brampton. The city wants that company to redevelop the western half of the block, next to City Hall.
Plans call for 385 condominiums, four new buildings, a park, renovation of the Mayfair Hotel and the building next door into a boutique hotel, and an underground parking garage.
But the development agreement between the city and Andrin, which lays out the staging and timing of the construction, has been delayed twice.
"My understanding is staff hope to have an agreement coming forward in the early part of '09, and things will hopefully be getting on the road thereafter," Vrbanovic said.
The use of tax dollars for parking on Centre Block has long been controversial for Coun. John Gazzola.
Currently, the city provides subsidized parking for the faculty and students at the nearby Wilfrid Laurier University graduate school of social work. To attract the grad school to the core, the city agreed to provide 175 parking spaces at $20 a month.
That subsidy will cost about $900,000 over the next 10 years. Gazzola says that's too much.
"When does that stop, or does it go on in perpetuity?" Gazzola asked at a recent budget meeting.
Carla Ladd, the city's chief administrative officer, said the city is talking to Laurier officials about parking issues. So far, the university is using only about 89 of the 175 spaces allotted to it. When the underground-parking garage is built, the university may be given fewer subsidized spaces than it now enjoys.
The city wants 250 spaces in the underground-parking garage on Centre Block. At $35,000 per spot those spaces will cost $8.75 million. The city will use a combination of land and money to pay for those parking spaces.
The city is selling the public land on Centre Block for $3.1 million. That will be deducted from the cost of building the garage. The city will also borrow $5.5 million in 2009 to help pay for those 250 spaces.
Kitchener's big dig
March 10, 2009
Record staff - Web edition
Work begins on a parking garage at Charles and Benton streets in Kitchener amid wet weather.
This photo looks west from Benton Street, with the Canada Trust tower visible at top right. The city and province are paying for the multi-storey, $15.3 million garage. Many of the 500 spots will be for the new provincial courthouse being built downtown.
Last edited by Spokes; 07-18-2010 at 09:10 AM.
spaceamoeba (flickr)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spaceamoeba/3792970181/
Taken on August 1, 2009:
jcollins
October 31, 2009:
jcollins
November 7, 2009:
jcollins
November 14, 2009:
Some pictures by me today.
They're getting ready to start the next level. By my count that will be #4. The front where the retail is going is also starting to take some more shape.
January 15, 2010
This one seems to be coming along quite quick, and for a parking garage I think it looks excellent.
Looks really good. I cant figure out the Benton side though. There's the tall glassed in part, that's a stairway I assume. Then is there retail on either side, or is it all on the right side of the stairway?
pictures taken by me today Feb 3,2010 I didn't realize pictures were taken so recently of this project so this post maybe a little redundant.
February 26, 2010
March 1, 2010
Is there going to be retail on the ground floor?
I think this structure reinforces my stereotype of downtown Kitchener: Welcome to Kitchener, the world's biggest parking lot!
Yes there is. If you go back a to the start of the thread you can see the renderings. It looks pretty good actually.
It says theres 2000 sq ft, will that typically be one retail unit or two?
It's going to be two retail units, one of them being two-floors iirc from past Downtown Advisory Committee meetings. The city looked at putting retail along Charles Street as well, but due to the slope there was going to be a significant additional cost.
Overall I'm pleased with this development. As a public transit rider/supporter, it's not as though I'll be using this parking garage much myself; and hopefully I won't be using the courthouse either. However, having an expanded employment base and a multi-level garage, is much preferred than two surface parking lots, which was the alternative in the near/medium future. Actually the alternative was worse, it wasn't just keeping those surface lots, it was also losing a large number of downtown employees (as the courthouse would have moved elsewhere).
Now I am a big believer in this region, but reality tells me our transit system isn't as good as the big boys (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver) and won't be for the foreseeable future. Yet I still see new parking garages added in those fair cities, which tells me Waterloo Region is a long way off from ever having a moratorium on new parking spaces in our urban zones. That is unless we also want a moratorium on new development, which I'm absolutely not in favour of.
I'm also all about better parking downtown - (ok, I'm not soliciting argument from pedestrians, transit users and environmentalists - having suburbs and private car users is still a fact of life in western culture) I'm just saying anything that promotes employment downtown (such as employee parking) and supports shopping & dining downtown I'm all for.
I do have a question though - Was a structure that was more "underground" ever discussed? Making a 4 to 6 level underground parking facility would be much more aesthetically pleasing (urbandreamer might like it), and would also leave the surface area free for retail, commercial, residential or mixed development. Was there a problem such as a high water table or other geographic issues? Was it purely cost? Was it even discussed?
I'm not at all familiar with the history of this project. Thanks.
I think a lot of it might be cost? And how much the province was willing to contribute.
I like this project for a few reasons, one the retail while nothing major, is nice. Two, I think it's going to look pretty good for a parking garage. And finally, the biggest reason I like it, is that it got us the courthouse. Without this, I dont think we see the courthouse project come.
It seems that for a parking structure they put a lot of planning into the design. I believe I had read that at one point they considered reinforcing the building to accomdate a possible future office building built right on top of the structure.
This is correct. Future development potential over top of the garage is possible as the structure has been engineered this way. This was all in the original council minutes for this project.Originally Posted by leaffan
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