Parkade proposed for Anderson LRT station

City council will consider plans to build a parkade at the Anderson C-Train station, along with leasing surface spots at the nearby SouthcentreMall and adding additional parking at LRT stations farther south.

The plans, presented to a city committee Tuesday, could see 1,000 of the 1,600 spots currently available at Anderson LRT preserved.

Earlier plans to eliminate as many as three-quarters of the available parking to make way for office and commercial developments received pushback from area residents and transit users.

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"Go take a look, it is full every morning, it's tough to find a parking stall," said Coun. Peter Demong.

"We are looking at possibly putting some kind of mixed use on top of it to offset the costs. Keeping in mind when this is built out the tax revenue from those properties will be quite large."

Mayor Naheed Nenshi said building parkades is expensive, but worth it in the long run if it keeps people using transit and allows for new development.

"You're looking at costs of $50,000 per stall in structured parking, but my argument is that you can make that money up because you're selling the rest of the land and you're making property taxes on something that currently pays zero in property tax," he said.

City council will discuss the plans next month, but a full timetable for redevelopment still hasn't been set.