Sask. exploring plans for Regina General Hospital parkade

The province is moving ahead with plans for a parkade at the Regina General Hospital.

For years, staff and visitors have complained about insufficient parking. Now, $750,000 has been allocated for site selection and design work.

“This year’s budget has $750,000 in it to go towards the planning and the procurement so really step one into getting a parkade at the Regina General Hospital,” Derek Meyers, the MLA for Regina Walsh Acres, said Monday.

The exploration work will determine where the parkade is built, with options overtop an existing parking lot or on a nearby vacant property.

“Right now there’s about 1,000 parking stalls onsite at the Regina General so it’s going to be taking a look at how many stalls we are going to need, kind of what that cost might look like to the end user,” Meyers said.

Visitors and staff have been parking on streets surrounding the hospital because of insufficient parking spaces on the hospital property. It affects people who live in the neighbourhood.

“During the day if you leave you often can’t come home because your parking spot is gone if you don’t have parking in your yard so it definitely would be a great enhancement to the neighbourhood,” Kelsey Beach, a co-owner of Malty National Brewing located a few blocks from the hospital, said.

The parking situation on the streets also makes it difficult for customers who want to visit neighbourhood businesses.

“Super, super tough. I see people all the time parking all the way down over by Balfour and stuff like that so you definitely have a block walk here and there that’s for sure,” Gage Mcguire of Hampton House Restaurant said.

It typically takes the provincial government four or five years to take a project from the early planning stages to completion.

A parkade is much simpler because there is minimal interior finishing. This project could be completed in half the time.