More car parks for Tauranga CBD

Visitors to Tauranga city centre can look forward to more car parking from next week.

The Elizabeth St parking building would be opening all floors, with a newly constructed top floor, and would be open 24/7.

Opening to the public on Monday the car park building would have 342 public spaces and 278 leased spaces.

It would be a welcome change for people coming into town and trying to find a park, Tauranga City Council transportation manager Martin Parkes said in a press statement today.

"Construction requirements for the building's new floor meant 250 parking spaces had to be closed off.

"The construction put a lot of pressure on city centre parking over the last six months, but all of that changes next week when the whole building comes back online."

Mr Parkes said that demand for private leased parking spaces in the city centre was increasing.

"With the new floor opening at Elizabeth Street, we will able to take more people off the waiting list and allocate them a leased parking space."

The new top floor would largely be dedicated to leased car parking.

Learning from experiences at the Spring St parking building Mr Parke said the leased parking areas needed to be seperated from the public parks - "otherwise we get problems with vehicles parked in other people's spaces."

Vehicles parked in private lease spaces without permission can now be ticketed by parking officers, following a recent amendment to the Traffic and Parking Bylaw 2012.

Mr Parke said that leased parking at the Spring Street building would eventually be moved to the upper levels as well.

The lift at the Spring Street parking building wasbeing replaced and was out of action until mid-October.

The replacement work was put off as late as possible to coincide with the Elizabeth Street building reopening at full capacity.