PRETTIER PARKING
City fixing up old garages
The city is embarking on a $4.1-million rejuvenation of its stinky Goyeau Street and Pelissier Street parking garages, now that it has the money from selling the Canderel garage.
The deal closed Tuesday, Mayor Drew Dilkens said. “We got almost $6 million in proceeds and we’ll be taking $4.1 million to invest in the Goyeau and Pelissier parking garages.”
He said the city will soon seek public input on how to make the garages more attractive, perhaps with the use of public art and facade improvements.
In the meantime, the garages will get some immediate improvements in the way of security-camera upgrades and LED lighting conversions.
“I’ve been really clear that the two garages stink. We now have the money in our hands and we’ll start that work,” Dilkens said. The city’s involvement in the Canderel project at Ouellette Avenue and Riverside Drive began with fears in 1999 that Chrysler Canada could move its headquarters out of Windsor.
The city worked out a deal with a private developer to expropriate the century-old buildings in the Norwich block and build the office tower and parking garage (which the city would own) for Chrysler as a tenant. The city agreed to pay $25.7 million, but the final bill after expropriation and construction totalled $49.8 million. In addition, the city agreed to leasing obligations that added millions to the final price. It also had to charge artificially low rates for parking which meant the parking garage often operated at a loss. Dilkens announced last November that the city had finally disentangled itself from the Canderel project, by selling the garage to the building ’s current owner, EuroPro, for $6 million and walking away from an array of future financial obligations that will save another $4.7 million.
The city recently replaced the commercial space on the ground floor of the Pelissier garage with more parking spaces, despite a public outcry. But it still has commercial space on the Goyeau garage’s ground floor, which is vacant except for a pharmacy. The mayor said the city still has to figure out what to do with that space. It would cost $3 million to renovate the commercial space, and no one is knocking at the city’s door asking to rent it.
Dilkens said he was underwhelmed by some drawings done to show how public art could spruce up the outside of the Goyeau garage, so the decision was made to seek public input. Many have seen the distinctive Z garage in Detroit, as well as impressive garages elsewhere in the world, he said.
“We’d like to get pictures of those and understand what ideas people like and see if it’s something we can afford to do and are able to do in our garages as well.”