The City of White Rock announced on its website Tuesday that the West Beach Parkade, located at the corner of Victoria Avenue and Vidal Street, is open to the public.
The four-level parkade, which cost the city about $12.5 million, includes more than 180 parking spaces, seven electric vehicle parking spaces, and will be open from 8 a.m. to midnight.
“During the final phases of construction, there were concerns regarding the brightness of lighting from the parkade. The city has heard your concerns, and the brightness of the lights has been reduced. The lights on level 4 will automatically turn off at midnight, and the lights on levels 1 to 3 will turn off at 12:30 a.m. The lights in the stairwells will remain on for safety and security purposes,” the city’s announcement states.
The parkade project was approved by last council in November, 2017. The cost of the project – which was projected in July of that year to be $9.25 million – increased due to a change in the construction market, the city told Peace Arch News at the time.
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During deliberations on the controversial parkade project, city staff had suggested that in winter months – or when the facility was not being fully used – potential uses of unused floors could be for activities such as “archery, ball hockey, table tennis, in-line skating, skateboarding, scooter riding and cycling.”
However, during a public hearing July 9 on a zoning bylaw amendment – to define accepted public land uses for temporary events – city planning and developments services manager Carl Johannsen acknowledged that such activities are not part of plans for the parkade.