A new car park being developed to cope with Ballarat’s booming CBD worker base could be closed less than a year after the opening of GovHub.
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The City of Ballarat is spending $600,000 to construct 300 new car parks at 122 Creswick Road, the former Shell service station which sits next to Officeworks.
Construction on the new park began late last month and is expected to be completed by September, to coincide with the closure of Civic Hall car park.
However council’s lease on the land stretches just three years, meaning Ballarat will likely lose the 300 parks in 2021. Construction of GovHub is expected to be complete in 2021, however staff will enter gradually.
In a statement City of Ballarat infrastructure and environment director Terry Demeo said “the Civic Hall car parking, which will be lost as part of the GovHub development, both the ground level and multi-deck parking, is currently paid parking”.
“The Creswick Road initiative, which will provide parking within proximity to the GovHub, is similarly a paid option.
“The CBD Parking Action Plan has evolved over time into looking at paid parking instead of increasing free parking places.”
Earlier this week council lodged a planning permit for the new park. While pedestrians will have access from both Creswick and Holmes roads, vehicles will only have access off Creswick Road.
Funding from the new park came from a $2 million state government contribution given to council to help develop 1000 new free spaces within the CBD to offset the increase in workers being added to the GovHub site.
When the revamped Civic Hall park is reopened as part of GovHub it will boast 220 parks, 55 less than are currently in place.
Speaking to The Courier last week, Mr Demeo said council was seeking expressions of interest for other off-street parking options.
He also said additional parking would come from ‘formalising’ on-street parking, whereby lines would be drawn to legally indicate angled parks where drivers were already parking.
Regional Development Minister Jaala Pulford said “our focus is on bringing 600 new jobs and a $100 million project to Ballarat’s city centre, the delivery of the Car Park Action Plan is a matter for local councillors to resolve”.