If you’re looking for a place to park in uptown Waterloo this summer, you may notice that some of your regular options have disappeared – and others sprung up to take their place.
Construction related to Ion, a redesign of King Street and redevelopment in the core are combining to take 162 parking spaces out of the uptown.
It’s news that has some business owners worried.
“The idea of losing any parking, at this point, makes me quite anxious,” said Carly Kuntz of The Waters Spa.
Robert Cundari, the head brewer at Abe Erb, says it’s not uncommon to walk out of his restaurant and spy drivers searching for available parking.
“You can just see the frustration in their faces,” he said.
Monday night, councillors agreed to spend $23,743 to create a plan to address parking concerns.
The city has already found room for 42 new on-street parking spots.
“Basically we’re taking the parking off of King Street, and shifting it more toward Caroline Street and Regina Street,” chief administrative officer Tim Anderson said Tuesday.
Negotiations are also underway to potentially allow public parking in the Canada Post building and other sites around uptown.
The main goal, Anderson said, is to have two-hour-free parking spots in various locations in the neighbourhood.
Kuntz says she’d like to see a longer time limit, as it might give shoppers time to patronize more businesses – or spend more time in individual ones.
“The time limit is a real struggle for us. We have a lot of guests in here for longer than two hours,” she said.
In total, the city expects to create 149 new spots, making up for nearly all of the loss.
As the parking changes involve various current and future construction projects, it will likely be two years before all the doomed spots are removed and all the future spots created.
