Published: 19 Dec 2018
The car park at 37 Sophia Street is to close temporarily on 2 January 2019 to enable the demolition of the vacant earthquake prone building.
The demolition of the building, which was found to have a low level of resilience in the event of a major earthquake, will take place in mid-January and will enable the building of a new, sealed, open air car park.
The new park will feature an increased number of available parks and will be a mixture of leased and casual paid parking.
Council Property Manager, Matt Ambler says that with the building now sitting vacant, and the lower demand over summer, means that now is a good time to complete the project.
“We had looked at options to either strengthen the existing building or replace it with another one, but neither of these options provided an adequate financial return to ratepayers compared to demolition,” he said.
“We have to approach every building differently, for instance we have recently earthquake strengthened Temuka Library and work to re-open the House Gallery at Aigantighe will begin next year.
“In this case, the footprint of the building was small and the expected future returns from it wouldn’t cover the cost of remediation works. There is demand for leased parking in this area, so this was seen to be the best use of the space.”
The park will be closed at 5pm on Wednesday 2 January, all cars must be removed from the building prior to this.
During the closure, alternative long stay parking is available at:
- 140M away: Farmers Car Park, Sophia Street
- 140M away: Library Car Park, Bank Street
- 300M away: Barnard Street Car Park
- 400M away: Cains Terrace Car Park
- 650m away: Landing Services Car Park, Station Street
More information about parking in the Timaru District can be found here.
Last updated: 24 Feb 2021