Hospital Parking Under Review
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The wooden Nechako Building will come down to make way for more hospital parking
Prince George, BC – With parking at a premium around the University Hospital of Northern BC, news that the proposed new Learning and Development Centre will encroach on one row in the front lot contained assurances those parking spots will not be lost…
The $9.9-million dollar teaching facility will be built parallel to Jubilee Lodge, but Northern Health’s Chief Operating Officer, Michael McMillan, says there will actually be a net gain in parking spaces.
McMillan says the wooden portion of the hospital’s Nechako Building along Alward Street is slated to be torn down. "The two projects aren’t tied together," he says, "We’re taking that building down because it’s past it’s useful life. There’s all sorts of issues with it and rather than invest more money, we’re actually going to take it down and that will create more parking in the back."
"So, we’ll have more spots than we actually lose with this (centre)." And McMillan says a parking review of UHNBC’s entire campus has just gotten underway.
"It’s probably been 10-years since we’ve done a parking study and it’s time to do one again," says the NH spokesperson. "Parking is always a number one issue no matter where we go and who we talk to, whichever group we talk to – whether we talk to the community, staff, physicians – parking is such a big topic."
McMillan expects the review will take about six months to complete.
Comments
It seems that people’s complaints are that they get ticketed when they are there longer than they anticipate, and that’s a fair comment.
They should make the parking similar to the long-term area at the airport where you get a ticket going in and pay at the gate (or in the hospital) on the way out. Problem solved.
More health care dollars going to a fairy tail. Train them in the north so that they can go south.
Cheers
McMillan says: “We’re taking that building down because it’s past it’s useful life. There’s all sorts of issues with it and rather than invest more money, we’re actually going to take it down”
I’l bet that the new parking he envisions will end up as reserved parking for staff.
I suppose it would seem ridiculous to Mr. McMillan to sink a few million into the Nechako building to create a new space with a fancy name. Put the balance of the 9.9 million into a fund for a new parking garage at 15th & Edmonton.
metalman.
Many of our specialists practice out of the hospital, bringing more traffic into the hospital, instead of being spread between medical offices. It can be very difficult to find a spot to park there already. Parking behind the hospital will probably not benefit the patients and visitors to the hospital. It would be for the staff.
Removing even more spots is short sighted. The hospital will need to address the shortage. Soon.
A parkade at 15th & Edmonton would be awesome, and finally a project that I would support.
Staff can’t even find enough parking spaces currently. They pay for parking and end up parking on the street!
Six months to study a small parking lot? Nice gig.
Shuttle bus from various points? Works for casinos in Vegas. Even Treasure Cove has a shuttle bus.
But then again if you take a shuttle bus, chances are someone will break into yer car while yer gone. Oh well.
The Nechako Building that they are going to tear down, used to be the co-ed treatment centre for alchoholic and drug addicted people. 18 bed 28 day program.
They closed this facility and now want to re-create it on Haldi Road. Once again the Government comes up with a good idea. Not.
A long time ago in a far away land of Oz, there was a long range plan for the hospital of what many thought would be a much larger Prince George by this time, to build a parkade which would bridge Edmonton street to serve medical campus buildings on both sides of the street.
We all know that the hospital grounds is not a place for treating addicted people since addiction is not an illness.
Addicts are like elementary school children.
That is why closed down schools make excellent addiction treament centres.
Look at how dirty that building behind the wooden building is.
Time to take it to a car wash, or it will end up like the building in front of it soon as well and need to be torn down.
Neglect, neglect, neglect. Why does our society neglect its infrastructure so much everywhere we turn these days?
The more you let a building deteriorate the better chance you have of building a new one.
Police station is a prime example.
Heaven forbid we should maintain buildings and have our local contractors go broke because there are no new buildings.
Apparently I was told Northern Health owns that broom closet called a lab at the Phoenix Medical Centre. Very forward looking planners were they?
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