Parkade

Only I would write a blog entry about a parkade, but this one seems worthy of mention.

I’ve shown the newly converted Hudson Bay Company building, as well as the newly converted King George across the street. Across the alley from the King George was what could possibly have been the grossest parkade I’ve ever had the misfortune of using. The place looked like it was about to cave in. There were no lights over the ticket machine, the crumbled floors dripped consistently, the railings were sketchy at best, and the whole place had an unsafe feel about it. Even the few businesses in the retail strip beneath it looked run down—or closed shop entirely.

A development company—I’m afraid I don’t know which—got hold of this pile of misery, and attempted to renovate it. Good luck, many of us who work downtown said. Better just to knock it down.

Again, we should have believed. The parkade has been transformed from end to end. They literally spent months on this (and who knows how many dollars). I’m not saying it’s an improvement to the downtown core, it’s an immense improvement. The car exit even features a keystone above the door—that’s elegant.

There’s new businesses in there too, much cleaner and more respectable ones. The railings have been replaced, the walls dismantled and rebuilt, new lighting, wiring…what a work of art.

Kudos to whoever did this. Another blight in downtown Saskatoon has been transformed into something good.