Interior Health is planning to build a new parkade on the Royal Inland Hospital property in Kamloops.
The exact scope of it is not clear, but IH expects it would cost $15-20 million.
Kamloops mayor Ken Christian, who is chair of the Thompson Regional Hospital District (TRHD), suspects the new parkade would have at least 350 stalls.
“(Interior Health) has not made a formal request yet, but we are urging them to look carefully at the parking there. There’s not a sufficient supply of parking for the existing hospital, let alone for the patient care tower.”
As part of the new patient care tower project at RIH, which will open in 2022, a 174-stall surface parking lot is part of the capital plan.
But IH director of business operations Corey Weins told the hospital board that the plans for that parking lot are currently on hold, while IH looks at other options for new parking. “One of those options that we have contemplated was a leased parkade. We issued a (request for quotation), went through that process, unfortunately we had to cancel it, as it turned out to not be a viable option.”
Yesterday, the TRHD board approved an extra $5 million in this year’s budget as part of its contribution to eventually building a new parkade. The TRHD contributes 40 per cent of costs for new healthcare facilities.
Christian says a timeline for construction of a new parkade at RIH remains unclear, until IH proceeds with more formal planning and makes a formal funding request to the TRHD.
“What we know is that there’s not enough parking for employees, there’s not enough parking for people who are going to appointments, and once we’re allowed to have visitors again, there won’t be enough parking for people visiting patients in the hospital.”