A new parkade would be needed in the north core if an event centre moved in, council learned Monday.
The suggestion, made by CEI Architecture’s Conrad Boychuk, seemed to be news to both council and administration. Coun. Linda Rydholm said she’d never heard of the need and that a parkade is about $32,000 per space. Boychuk said the structure would need about 500 spaces, which would add up to around $16 million.
“That quite frankly is the first time I’ve heard that as well,” city manager Tim Commisso said. “I’ll follow up on that.”
Boychuk is heading up a team looking into Innova Park, the downtown north core and Thunder Bay International Airport land as potential sites for a new event centre. Given that most of the discussion around Thunder Bay has focused on Innova Park and the downtown site, mayor Keith Hobbs wanted to know why the airport site is being considered.
“Why would we even look at the airport site?” The mayor asked.
The site is important because it helps Boychuk’s team test out different designs, and because the team is determining what site is best based on information it has gathered. Boychuk said location isn’t the most important question to be asking right now.
“I don’t think at this point you should be looking to find out what people’s personal preferences are,” he said.
What is important now is to let the team do its due diligence before it makes a final recommendation for site selection and programming in June, Boychuk said.
That will be based on a site evaluation matrix that deals with everything from economic impact to parking.
Still based on what he’s seen online and at the first public open house, people seem to prefer Innova Park.
“I think that there’s a pretty vocal group that has that preference.”
Boychuk also provided council with findings from the first open house that was held Feb.29.
Seniors represented 40 per cent of the people who attended the meeting.
Concerts were the highest rated entertainment interest at 87 per cent while a hockey franchise was rated the lowest at 67 per cent.
That information is based on more than 280 questionnaires.
Another open house will be held April 11 at the Da Vinci Centre starting at 3 p.m.
