SASKATOON – The City of Saskatoon is finished rolling out its last new flex-parking stations in the Sutherland area. On Wednesday, 13 new terminals went online, much to the dismay of a local business owner who says he believes they will drive away business.
“People are not going to pay the two dollars to park here, because they’re going to go to Canadian Tire, they’re going to go to other merchants that have free parking there,” said Fred Kwan, owner of the Home Hardware in Sutherland.
Paid parking on Central Avenue is a new concept; before there was a time limit, but no charge. Kwan’s business still has a small free parking lot, which he says he will patrol to make sure people aren’t using it, while shopping elsewhere.
“We will be ticketing people that park there that should not be parked there,” said Kwan.
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City of Saskatoon officials say they made an effort to work with businesses in the area prior to the implementation of the parking stations.
“Because that area had never had paid parking, customers come and go there and park,” said Andrew Hildebrandt, the city’s director of community standards.
“We had to provide a little more communication to the area,” he added.
Hildebrandt added that shop owners will benefit from parking revenue that will go to the neighbourhood business improvement district and by the fact that drivers will be forced to move their cars from time to time.
“You want your customers to change, you don’t want your employees parking there all day, you don’t want other customers parking there and utilizing some other area,” said Hildebrandt.
“It’s about generating turnover to create that business activity.”
Kwan, however, believes his customers will be frustrated by the stations.
“Some people just don’t like change and our customers are based on an older demographic who like the service here, want to come, want to go and leave,” he said.
“For a demographic that’s having issues with learning the station, we definitely encourage them to call in, we’ve been able to in other cases provide help,” said Hildebrandt.
Kwan says he is now telling complaining customers to contact city hall or their ward councillor. Its advice he says he wish he’d taken, months ago.
“I should have said more, but I didn’t,” he said, speaking in the aisle of his shop.
“I regret that decision.”
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