City aims to build 'reuseable' multi-use parkades as it looks to the future

The next parkade to be built by the City of Calgary could become more than just a place to leave your vehicle with plans to incorporate office, retail and residential spaces into the new structure.

The $60-million project slated for Ninth Avenue S.E., across from the new central library in the East Village, could also be a place where people live and work one day, says Michael Brown, president and CEO of the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation.

"Thatnew type of building ispretty active, ithopefullyhas other usesinit," Brown said.

"Someof those other uses could be an office, could be a residential tower, it could be retail," he added.

The cityagency is overseeing theconstruction ofthenew 500-stallparkade, slated to begin next year.

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Brown says while parking is needed today, the arrival of autonomous vehicles might one day change that.

The city is already working on a pilot program that could see driverless shuttles betweenTelusSPARK and the Zoo LRT stationby 2018, with the goal of determining whether they will be feasible in other parts ofCalgary.

"We can no longer build standalone, single-use civic facilities, and we have to create them as mixed-use places," saysCoun.Gian-CarloCarra.

"And specifically withparkades, we have to design them in such a way that they are robust andreuseableinto the future."