BID TO SOLVE PARKING WOES
City council eyes lot beside packed WFCU Centre
The day after 100 parking tickets were issued to Spitfires fans who’d mounted curbs, parked on medians and tore up turf, city council moved forward Friday on a plan to secure up to 1,300 additional parking spaces adjacent to the WFCU Centre.
The strategy is two-pronged. First, council wants to open up the private parking lot owned by London developer Shmuel Farhi to provide extra parking for the upcoming Memorial Cup as well as the rest of the playoffs. Then it is taking steps for the future, to buy 15 of Farhi’s 60 acres. That would add 1,300 spaces to the 1,800 already at the WFCU.
“That would for sure solve the long-term issue there,” Mayor Drew Dilkens said following the in-camera meeting.
The parking chaos at Thursday night’s Game 4 between the Spitfires and London Knights was the worst yet, according to Bill Kralovensky, the city’s supervisor of compliance and enforcement.
He said parking enforcement usually sends one car to enforce parking during Spitfires games because some fans do jump curbs to park illegally on the grass.
“But last night was just atrocious,” he said.
“One hundred tickets on the dot (the most ever) were issued last night, for parking on the grass, the medians, along McHugh Street, in people’s backyards, that type of thing.” The fine was $25. “It was just ridiculous.” He said people were complaining Friday about getting the tickets, arguing there is nowhere to park during games. But that’s no excuse to drive over curbs and park on grass, which sustained significant damage in the wet, muddy conditions, he said.
Too few spaces for big events has been a problem since the centre was built, but became more acute after Farhi shut down his private lot, following at least one slip-and-fall lawsuit that persuaded him it wasn’t worth the hassle.
Dilkens, who witnessed the parking problems personally at Thursday’s game, said council wants to open up that lot as early as Sunday for Game 6.
The city self-insures claims under $250,000, Dilkens said.
“Everyone on city council is acutely aware of the parking problems and parking challenges at the WFCU and the majority are certainly committed to trying to find a solution, to address it both in the short term for the big events we have coming up and for the permanent solution with additional space.”
Farhi was asking $18 million for the 60 acres, a price Dilkens called “preposterous.”
He wouldn’t divulge what the city would pay for 15 acres. The first step, he said, is doing an environmental analysis of the former Lear industrial site to check for soil contamination.
“Instead of just taking it and worrying about it later, we want to make sure of what we’re getting,” he said.
Contacted Friday before Dilkens went public on the plan, Farhi said he’d been working two years with the mayor.
“I’m happy to work a deal with the city and the Spitfires organization for the betterment of the community,” he said.
Officials from the Spitfires, who were preparing for Friday night’s Game 5 in London, were unavailable.
Dilkens said that he expects to charge fans for this additional parking for the Memorial Cup, but when the 1,300 new spots are added permanently, they’ll likely be added to the current 1,800 free spaces.
Dilkens said when he was outside the game Thursday night, he saw fans pulling up onto the grass in their SUVs.
“And I thought, oh boy, this is going to make things ugly.”
Shortly after, Dilkens was on the telephone with Farhi confirming the deal, when Farhi said if the city wants the lot for Sunday’s Game 6, to just take care of the insurance.
While the 15 acres the city is buying would create new parking spaces, Dilkens said he also wants to explore using the land for a combination of 700 to 800 parking spaces plus a new indoor sports facility.