UW eyes Water Street parking lot
CAMBRIDGE — A city parking lot across from the old Galt post office has caught the eye of the University of Waterloo as it ponders where to expand its bursting School of Architecture in downtown Cambridge.
“Don’t pay attention to the details,” school director Anne Bordeleau told city councillors Tuesday night at a special meeting on possible sites, including that Water Street parking lot, for a potential school expansion. “They are ... just ideas.”
But the new parking lot idea — to construct a new building alongside or overtop Imperial Lane and connect it to the Main Street heritage conservation district block — piqued council interest, especially since the city spent $1.7 million to rebuild that parking lot three years ago.
“When I look at this site that we just put in and spent all that money on, that would take away parking from downtown,” Coun. Jan Liggett said. “So what’s your solution for that?”
Don’t worry about losing 100 parking spots, Bordeleau said. The expansion, as sketched from an idea first considered in a conversation over a cup of coffee, could be elevated above the ground.
“You don’t lose all of them,” she said.
But the concept of having a Main Street school front where there is no vacant space was intriguing. Is it possible to attach the new school expansion to buildings that are designated historic?
“I think the idea of something that is designated doesn’t mean that one cannot touch it,” said Bordeleau, whose school is looking to add 65,000 square feet of space for its growing design programs.
“I think we would work with care. Part of it would be to ensure that it is preserved properly.”
One key for the school is that such a building, across Water Street from the where the old post office is being converted into a digital library, would rise within walking distance from the current architectural school. They would only be about 200 metres apart.
About 300 undergrad and 100 grad students already draw an education in a repurposed silk mill on the west side of the Main Street bridge over the Grand River.
There are other options. Building an expansion over the parking lot on the school’s existing Melville Street site, where it opened in 2004, is still being considered. It was the main possibility four years ago when the school asked the city to contribute $8 million to an expansion. The school is still waiting for similar commitments from Ottawa and Queen’s Park.
Bordeleau also spoke of the school possibly renting space in the former Southworks property on Grand Avenue South, now being renovated for the Gaslight District. That would be a temporary solution while a new building is planned.
Concern was raised that a building rising over Water Street might dominate the character of and block the sunshine from the historic buildings or old post office, now undergoing a $13.5million renovation.
“We don’t want to build a building that would cast a shadow over this investment the city has made,” Bordeleau said. “It would be about building around what is existing.”
Still, the potential loss of even a few coveted downtown parking spots might worry members of the downtown Cambridge business improvement area.
“Parking could be a concern depending on what happens,” said BIA chair Graham Braun.
Braun, who often sees students completing thesis work at his coffee shop beside the parking lot, added that he enjoyed the prospect of the school expanding in the downtown, especially on his side of the river.
City staff will prepare a report on the UW expansion possibilities for a May council meeting.
“It’s a sketch,” Bordeleau said. “A lot of things can be worked out.”