Construction has begun on the Royal City’s first ever parklet.
Crews will be on site every day until Saturday, Aug. 8, transforming two parking stalls in front of Fratelli Bakery into a public space. It’ll feature a cedar patio, benches and greenery.
“So many cities are doing this now,” said Erika Mashig, a parks and open space planner with the City of New Westminster. “It’s sort of a new craze in urban design, these kind of mini-parks, particularly because there’s not a lot of space left in cities for parks.”
The East Columbia Street parklet is part of a pilot project that will see one built every year for the next five years. The goal is to have one installed on a main street in each of the city’s five commercial areas. The next one, according to a staff report, would be built in Uptown in 2016, followed by 12th Street, the downtown and Queensborough in 2017 and 2019.
The structures also carry a number of benefits, Mashig added, like enhancing the streetscape and increasing foot traffic for local businesses.
“Research shows that the parklets that are successful are located near food and beverage. I think people will start to linger more in that area of East Columbia, connect, you know, socialize and that’s always great for business,” she said.
Parklets also encourage local shop owners to do a better job of cleaning up garbage around their store and looking after the landscape, Mashig noted.
Lots of research was done before securing capital funding for the project, including pulling inspiration from communities like Seattle, New York City and San Francisco.
Whether it’s for lunch, an impromptu meeting or a date, Mashig expects the Sapperton structure to be around for a while, even though it’ll be built in a way that it can be removed.
“The first one in Vancouver, it’s probably been there between five and seven years I’d say and people are using it just as much they did the first day, if not more,” she said.
