REGINA – Construction of the new parkade for Regina General Hospital has reached the milestone of 80 per cent completion.
Government officials including Premier Scott Moe, Health Minister Everett Hindley, and Minister for SaskBuilds Terry Jenson marked the occasion at a media event inside the parkade Wednesday afternoon.
The structure itself is now up on 13th Avenue, though there is still much work yet to be done.
Officials there are saying the $22 million dollar parkade project should be completed later this year, with work still to be done on the interior as well as exterior finishing of the structure.
Once completed, the parkade will have 1,005 stalls, with 873 in the parkade and 132 on the surface, for a net increase of 686 parking spaces.
But those numbers got the attention of opposition New Democrats. They sent out a press release in the afternoon pointing out that according to the government’s own Expression of Interest from Jan. 5, 2023, there was a staff waitlist of 1,400 for parking.
The government had also expected a 1,928-stall parkade would be required. The finished parkade expects to be over 900 short of that.
When asked about that, Saskatchewan Health Authority CEO Andrew Will expressed confidence the new parkade could handle the demand.
“We’re really pleased to have 1,005 stalls coming in this Parkade,” said Will. “Given that staff work across multiple shifts during the day and will be using a scramble parking approach, we will be able to accommodate significantly more people than that in the parkade.”
He adds they will assess closely, once they open, how many they can fit in the parkade in a 24 hour period. He expects it will be substantially better than what it was. Will did say that one option available is a park-and-ride service that could shuttle staff in.
Link Developments CEO Carmen Lien said the parkade can be expanded in the future if needed. He said the parkade could be extended east over the surface lot, which would allow the rest of the parkade to continue to be utilized during that construction.
Link Developments is leading the construction efforts and will also operate the lot. As for paid parking, Lien said all the revenue generated will be “SHA and taxpayer dollars.”
