Will new parking complexes see the head-lights of day?

Will new parking complexes see the head-lights of day?
The Times of India

Bangalore: For the few lakh cars in the city cramming nooks and corners for parking space, there is respite in the form of eight parking complexes planned by the BCC. Of these three are spanking new and ready for public use.

But the moot question is — Will they ever see the light of day? Plans for these parking complexes have been abounding for years now.

Multi-storeyed parking complexes, billed as an answer to traffic-related woes and hailed as the numero uno answer to collective traffic-pooling, all display signs of sophisticated architecture. But initiatives by the builders and the BCC to step up the work is lacking, says a BCC source.

For instance, the parking complex at J.C. Road has been seeing blueprints for the last eleven years before a plan was declared ready. And the complex now is vastly different from the original plan. Over the last eleven years, the plan has metamorphosed from being a five-storey structure with a car park capacity of 600 to a two-storey structure housing 250 vehicles.

Recently a joint venture inked between the BCC and a private developer Garuda Builders, reached fruition when the parking complex at Magrath Road was declared open. Built at a cost of Rs 80 crore, the complex boasted of a vehicle capacity of 900. But now BCC officials themselves reason, the presence of a multiplex would gluttonise the chunk of parking, reducing the slots to 400.

Meanwhile, to convert dilapidated structures dotting bustling hubs, the BCC has zeroed in on old markets at Malleswaram, Seshadripuram and Johnson market. The blueprints for putting their infrastructure are well in place but authorities say the obstacle in their course is rehabilitation. Explains R. Jaiprasad, BCC technical advisor (infrastructure), “Once there are concrete plans on where and how the vegetable vendors would be rehabilitated, work on Malleswaram and Seshadripuram markets will start.’’

The Malleswaram market in the new parking complex plan has a basement, ground floor, mezzanine, three floors and a terrace across 70,000 sq ft, as does the Seshadripuram market. Johnson Market has a proposal in place but to ink a JV, the BCC would call for re-tendering.

For the proposed parking complex at Dickenson Road, the land in question belongs to the Army and apparently negotiations are on to let the BCC use the land. The proposal for a parking complex at Gandhinagar, opposite Sukh Sagar, has been discussed for a while with nothing concrete finalised.

Meanwhile to park, simply wait maadi.