The multi-level parking lots the Coimbatore Corporation has planned across the city will form part of shopping complexes. At least that is what the civic body is thinking of.
Commissioner T.K. Ponnusamy told The Hindu that the Corporation had asked a designing company to prepare the design in such a way that the front portion of the multi-level car parking building was a shopping complex and the rear parking lot. The design would be applicable to all the parking lots in the city.
Assistance
The Corporation is building the parking lots in R.S. Puram (D.B. Road), Town Hall (Big Bazaar Street) and Gandhipuram (Cross Cut Road) with financial assistance from the Local Planning Authority.
The parking lots would be ‘Ground Plus Three' (G+3) structures, accommodating shops on the ground and three flours. On the rear, at parking lots, it would have five levels, which would be accommodated within the G Plus Three format.
Mr. Ponnusamy explained that since the height of parking levels need not be the same as the shopping floor, five levels could be accommodated.
The parking lots would be automated. From the entrance, the cars would be taken to a hydraulic jack, lifted and then placed at empty bays. As the cars roll in they would be electronically tagged for easy retrieval.
The Commissioner also said that the Corporation had asked designer to allow 15 per cent of the space for future expansion at the multi-level parking lots. And the number of cars at each of the parking would be decided after a detailed traffic study.
A study the consultancy firm Wilbur Smith carried out for the Corporation said that the Big Bazaar Street parking lot could accommodate cars in space that equalled 82 passenger car equivalents, Cross Cut Road 495 passenger car equivalents and D.B. Road 111 passenger car equivalents.
The Corporation had earlier decided to avail itself of grant instead of loan from the Local Planning Authority. This was in December last year.
