UPDATE, Tuesday, 8.25am: Regional Development Victoria will "work together" with council to deliver more parking across Ballarat.
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It's noted 405 spaces were also added at the new free commuter car park at Ballarat station, which opened in 2019, and 290 new car spaces have been "delivered at other locations" in the Ballarat CBD - it's not included where these are.
A spokesperson said council is "responsible for delivering the CBD parking action plan".
"We're working to deliver more car parking, including through the 1000 free car park election pledge," they said in a statement.
"Regional Development Victoria continues to work with the Council to deliver more parking for Ballarat."
PREVIOUSLY:
The 280-space car park on Creswick Road will close this month, council has revealed.
According to a City of Ballarat media release, the land's owner has decided to begin works on a new retail building, understood to be an Officeworks to replace the one next door.
The car park will close to drivers on May 13.
When completed the new planned Officeworks will have 115 car parks for customers including some at the rear of the site that connects to Holmes Street.
The current $850,000 car park officially opened in November 2019, funded by a state government grant to replace parking where GovHub now sits.
GovHub was built for 1000 public servants but equipped with only 220 car parks, a loss of fifty parks from the dual-level car park that existed on the corner of Armstrong and Market streets.
Although this total number of workers in GovHub has never been realised, the Creswick Road car park funded by the state government was intended to meet this deficit.
The biggest surprise, however, was how much council was paying for month to rent the land - about $200,000 per year, at one stage.
Council notes the land was leased for three years until December 2020, with two one-year extensions granted, then a month-by-month arrangement until works began.
The car park is completely separate to another parking plan, a 2018 election promise for 1000 new free car parks in the CBD, which so far has found homes for just over 500 spaces - most of which will be part of the Ballarat Base Hospital rebuild.
IN THE NEWS
The council media release concludes with a statement from mayor Des Hudson, who says council will "continue to work with (the state government's) Regional Development Victoria to deliver additional car parking in Ballarat's CBD".
It's not known whether this will be in addition to the 1000 free car parks - RDV has been emailed for further information.
At time of writing - about 12.30pm on a pleasant but overcast Monday - there were maybe 100 vehicles parked, and the boomgates were up.
The bright green '300' on council's sign was still lit up.
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