Park & Ride customer says Century Park developer isn't ready for parking switch over

Starting Friday, drivers who want to reserve a parking spot at the Century Park LRT Park & Ride lot will have to go through a private developer instead of the city, but at least one customer says the developer isn’t ready.

As part of a lease signed between the city and ProCura, the company that owns Century Park, 454 parking stalls that were leased by the city is returning to the developer on March 1. The city says this all of the paid reserved parking spots. The city will still operate 390 free parking spots at the lot, but they are available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Carsten Schwark says his wife has paid the city for a reserved spot since the LRT opened at Century Park. He spoke to CTV News on Feb. 28 and said they had applied to ProCura for a paid spot starting March 1, but while they received confirmation that they have a spot, they still don’t have the pass.

“We applied, we gave our payment information, we were told by email that parking passes will be mailed out, and as of this afternoon we haven’t received anything from ProCura in terms of parking passes.”

“We called a couple of times during the day, ProCura voicemail boxes were full, we emailed, emails haven’t been answered. Our only choice is we park there and risk being towed like it says on those signs, or maybe I have to drop my wife off tomorrow morning.”

Schwark says ProCura also increased the price of the monthly passes by $5 a month, at a time when ETS fares are also increasing in price. He said after years of using the LRT Park & Ride service, his wife is looking at parking options downtown.

“The city is trying to get more ridership onto the LRTs, so I think the regular increase in prices for parking and LRT is counterproductive.”

This is only the first part of the parking changeover between the city and ProCura. On March 1, 2020 the city’s lease on the lot expires entirely, and the remaining 390 parking stalls will go back to the developer.

“The concern in the long-term now is how long will this lot be available?” Schwark said. “This is property of the developer, when will they start building on the property, and what will be next?”

“After 2020 it will all be paid parking and beyond 2025 there will be parking that's integrated with and shared with commercial and residential spots once Century Park's built out,” City Councillor Michael Walters told CTV News. “We've future proofed it so there's always parking there.”

The city says they have a few other plans to help ease the parking crunch. A bus network redesign is in the works, and a parking facility with up to 2,000 stalls on the south side of the Henday is scheduled to be completed by next year. 

 

UPDATE:

Schwark reached out to CTV News on Friday morning to say that ProCura reached out and let him know that they would be checking license plates for drivers who were parked in the reserved parking area.