The City of Vancouver is looking at signing a long term lease with the owners of the Canucks to build an underground parking lot next to Rogers arena.
Councillor Geoff Meggs says if approved a five story underground parking lot will be built adjacent to Rogers arena.
“The area underneath the old alignment of Georgia Street, I think it is, be made available, the underground portion, to create a parking garage. So the city is leasing that underground space for long term for about 1.2 million dollars.”
Meggs says it would be a long term lease worth $ 1.2 million signed with a company owned by the Aquilini’s, Pacific Arena Incorporated.
“The city is getting nothing for it now it is a bunch of soil underneath a street and what the real estate staff are charged with doing is analyzing it and if it is made available on a long term basis to Rogers Arena what would lease payment look like if we were prepared to sell it outright they have come up with that calculation and we rely on their professional standards to do that.”
Meggs says the underground parking facility will work with or without the Georgia street viaducts.
“It is hard by the edge of Rogers Arena so I don’t think it is available for development for a different purpose what they are doing is leasing the area underneath the street alignment which is also not available for street use and there is no impact here on the viaducts whether they stay or go, they could stay or go on this arrangement but the city would achieve revenue for what is now soil under a street.”
The report goes before council tomorrow.
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