The Great Canadian Parking Lot Thread!

[Mrs Sauga]

What are the significant parking lots in your city's downtown core. What was demolished to make way for it. What plans does the lot have in the future?

For example, Toronto has huge, significant lots on Front/Simcoe and Richmond/Victoria. These are both in the CBD. I know the future plans are for 56 Front office/condo, and the Yonge and Riich(mond) Condo by Great Gulf respectively. But what was there before? I know Toronto has some nasty lots south of the railway but I don't think they've every had anything on them.

Montreal has some nasty lots near the Bell Centre. What was there before? What does the future hold?

Try choose just 3-4 major lots in your city.

[SignalHillHiker]

St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

We don't really have any parking lots of a significant size in the downtown core. There are a few parkades, but beyond that there are really only a handful of very small surface lots.

The largest is probably this one, by the Johnson Building, but that barely counts as downtown:


Downtown St. John's from Southcott Hall by Signal Hill Hiker Photography, on Flickr

The largest actually in the downtown is probably this one, beside TD Place:


TD Place by Signal Hill Hiker Photography, on Flickr

The rest... as far as I can remember... are way, way smaller. The footprint of a single small heritage building.

Outside the core, however, we have many sprawling parking lots - especially around big box store developments. Another shameful mess is the parking lot around our government buildings:

http://binged.it/U58ylP

[Acajack]

They are few and far between in downtown Ottawa (CBD) and fading fast.

The biggest one that was left was at Lisgar and Metcalfe, but even in the Google Streetview it is under construction for condos:

http://goo.gl/maps/ugn3l

[Acajack]

In Gatineau over the past year or so they built this:

http://goo.gl/maps/VUh8C

... on what was until then the biggest downtown parking lot in the city.

We still have way too many left but several of them are slated for various condo and office projects at the moment.

[harls]

Originally Posted by Acajack

They are few and far between in downtown Ottawa (CBD) and fading fast.

The biggest one that was left was at Lisgar and Metcalfe, but even in the Google Streetview it is under construction for condos:

http://goo.gl/maps/ugn3l

There's a fairly large lot at Kent and Queen across from Holt Renfrew that is begging to be developed.

[Innsertnamehere]

our current biggest parking lot in the downtown core is one on queen street between church and jarvis. 2.5 acres, and with no current plans for it.



another one is the One yonge parking lot, which is about 3 acres. It is currently planned to be replaced with 98, 92, and two 70 floor buildings.





The biggest garage in the city is the City Hall garage, with 2083 spots.

[Wooster]

Calgary still has way too many significant surface parking lots. Way too many.

They're starting to fill in at a fairly good rate though. There's not that many with no plans of some sort. The biggest concentration are along the CPR tracks and in the east side of Beltline.

There is a big parkade that's about to come down as well to make way for the big Brookfield office 225 6th.

This is coming down

http://cheapparkingcalgary.com/wp-co...eHeader_A2.jpg

as part of this:

http://storage.canoe.ca/v1/dynamic_r...y=80&size=650x

[Mrs Sauga]

What was demolished to make way for these parking lots?

[Doug]

Originally Posted by Mrs Sauga

What was demolished to make way for these parking lots?

In Calgary, not much of value was lost to parking lots as not much was there in the first place. Calgary was a small prairie town that grew inorganically into a large city. The rail corridor through downtown was mostly sidings and warehouses with a few industrial operations. Those disappeared very gradually starting the the 1970s and not much has been built in place other than parking lots. That situation will likely change as developable land elsewhere downtown becomes scarce. 7th and 8th Avenues were the commercial streets of the old Calgary. Some great buildings were lost along there, but most became office towers not parking lots. 6th Ave had some commercial but also some SFH. 5th and 4th Avenues were mostly SFH. Areas closer to the river were a mix of SFH and industrial. 4th and 5th were redeveloped early in the 70s boom and don't have many parking lots. 3rd and 6th had lots of proposals during the 70s boom that didn't happen so they have lots of parking lots. The eastern and western corners of the triangle that forms downtown Calgary were industrial areas razed in the 60s and 70s in the name of urban redevelopment that is only not starting to happen (ex. East Village).

[manny_santos]

Kingston has two municipally-owned parking garages downtown. For a city its size, it's a pretty good system.

London has a lot of surface parking in its downtown. One of the largest is on York Street across from the Convention Centre, and it's former industrial land.

[Wharn]

I'd nominate the Don Valley Parkway in Toronto. Officially it's an expressway, but in reality you may as well just abandon your car and go for a walk.

Originally Posted by manny_santos

London has a lot of surface parking in its downtown. One of the largest is on York Street across from the Convention Centre, and it's former industrial land.

There's a lot of surface parking that occupies space where commercial and residential buildings once stood. The land in downtown London must be pretty worthless.

[Beedok]

For Hamilton I think it would be Downtown. :p

[north 42]

We had a giant parking lot in the west end of downtown that had been there for about 20 years. A great old residential neighbourhood was cleared so that the city could eventually build a new OHL arena there, but the city was not successful in getting one built, and so it just sat for 2 decades. It really just sucked the life out of that part of the core, and DT in general. There were so many ideas for what development should go there, but as usual, nothing ever happened, until last year, when the city decided to build the new aquatic Centre and indoor water park on the site. That whole area of the core now feels so much more viable and lively, with some great waterfront lots begging for some highrise condos to be built next door.

[matt602]

Every single one of these giant red blocks downtown is parking.

(raisethehammer.org)

Hamilton always wins the crappy contests.

[AuxTown]

Originally Posted by matt602

Every single one of these giant red blocks downtown is parking.

(raisethehammer.org)

Hamilton always wins the crappy contests.

Why are there so many people parking in downtown Hamilton?

[flar]

Originally Posted by O-Town Hockey

Why are there so many people parking in downtown Hamilton?

They're mostly empty most of the time.

And there's more not shown (I think I made that picture years ago)

And this is why I get so upset when they keep tearing everything down. 80% of downtown Hamilton has already been demolished, a lot of it buildings most cities would love to have.

[worldwide]

Originally Posted by flar

They're mostly empty most of the time.

And there's more not shown (I think I made that picture years ago)

And this is why I get so upset when they keep tearing everything down. 80% of downtown Hamilton has already been demolished, a lot of it buildings most cities would love to have.

I think the buildings are demolished and turned in to parking lots for tax purposes more so than because they are viable parking lots. i think the math looks like this:

parking income minus property tax on a parking lot

is greater than:

potential rental income minus building property tax and maintenance


this is especially true of vacant or abandoned buildings.

the city is also more likely to approve a shoddy building design on a parking lot/vacant lot than if an existing building is on site. this would be more true of a city like london, On or Regina, Sk than Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver who tend to have higher standards for any new construction, period.

[entheosfog]

Vancouver used to have a huge number of downtown parking lots. This photo is from 1960:

The high res is worth a look:
http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/u...be7-A23492.jpg
There are other pictures that highlight the abundance of Vancouver's parking lots but this is all I could find while doing a quick search.

Many of the empty lots have been filled in but there are still a few stragglers.
This lot is perhaps the biggest lot left downtown. It used to be the site of a bus depot and has sat empty for many decades. There is talk the new art gallery could be built on this site:

Future Art Gallery Site? by entheos_fog, on Flickr

And some historic comparisons of parking lots being built out:

Law Courts Site - 1971/2012 by entheos_fog, on Flickr


NW Corner of Davie & Howe - 1981/2012 by entheos_fog, on Flickr


1000 Block of Homer - 1981/2011 by entheos_fog, on Flickr


1000 Block of Alberni Street - 1974/2010 by entheos_fog, on Flickr

[flar]

Originally Posted by worldwide

I think the buildings are demolished and turned in to parking lots for tax purposes more so than because they are viable parking lots. i think the math looks like this:

parking income minus property tax on a parking lot

is greater than:

potential rental income minus building property tax and maintenance


this is especially true of vacant or abandoned buildings.

the city is also more likely to approve a shoddy building design on a parking lot/vacant lot than if an existing building is on site. this would be more true of a city like london, On or Regina, Sk than Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver who tend to have higher standards for any new construction, period.

And the whole situation feeds on itself, as the owners of these lots want Toronto prices for them and are willing to hold onto them indefinitely. So more stuff gets demolished whenever somebody actually wants to put up a new building.

[Andrewjm3D]

Originally Posted by O-Town Hockey

Why are there so many people parking in downtown Hamilton?

Sadly as Hamilton hit hard times and many of the building owners couldn't afford to maintain their structures. It was cheaper for them to tear them down and generate revenue from parking even if the lot was only ever half full. It's a shame so many amazing structures were lost due to economic reasons. This is the same reason why a lot of parking lots are where they are in many Canadian cities.

At least Hamilton still has a huge amount of heritage structures and when things start to roll again these lots are in great locations for highrises to go.