05-01-2018, 09:19 PM
(05-01-2018, 07:17 PM)panamaniac Wrote: I wouldn't want to look at a five storey parking garage out behind my house either, but I'm surprised that their complaint does not seem to extend to the office tower itself. A bit of division within the neighbourhood ranks, or a "one off" who offered good filler for the Record?
I think some are closer to the garage than the office building. And I suppose looking at a garage is less appealing than looking at a glass tower.
I really don't think it's going to be as bad as these residents think it will be.
As for the garage itself, I think going down several levels is substantially more expensive than building it upwards. Unsure how the water table reacts, but there are a lot of issues over at the Civic garage (KPL) with flooding, and it's on higher ground. The one elevator (the centre one) is quite often out of order because it's flooded. Lots of mould issues as well. Mould should be a serious concern, but as a government owned facility, they're allowed to get away with it as the region won't shut them down. A private underground garage with mould issues would be shut down by the ROW right away.
City hall doesn't have the same issue. It's on higher ground too, but during the times that you have moisture problems (usually the winter months when slush is stuck onto cars but outside temperature is close to freezing) the city hall garage has a giant heater (on intentional) that keeps the garage warmer and dryer than the other underground garage (the heater is the refrigeration exhaust the keeps the Carl Zehr Square rink nice and icy).