ISLAMABAD: While finishing touches are being added to the base work of a plaza in Blue Area, city managers have yet to call for bids for the building of five parking plazas throughout the capital. The latter was began in March of last year, but the plaza project is progressing slowly.
Last year, the CDA announced that it will construct five new parking plazas in various areas of Islamabad to help address parking shortage. The tender has not been awarded yet for the same.
After receiving a briefing on the project on Saturday, CDA Chairman Mohammad Usman tweeted: “Construction of Parking Plaza in Blue Area – preparation of bed for raft concrete after diverting all nullahs.” Usman has been keeping track of the progress of the work being done on the plaza in Blue Area.
The chairman of CDA in his first media briefing last year had announced that five new parking plazas would be constructed to overcome the challenge of shortage of parking space in the city.
CDA shared that the National Logistics Cell (NLC) after submitting the lowest bid of Rs1,274.5M had won the contract and was executing the project as per plan. It is building the parking lot near Savour Foods along Jinnah Avenue.
However CDA officials said that apparently, due to weak financial position of the CDA and expenditure of under-construction mega projects such as Margalla Road, I.J. Principal Road, Bhara Kahu bypass road and expansion of expressway project, the CDA’s finances do not allow it to start a new mega project.
Even though work is being paced up, the project may not be finished by March as originally planned. It is because the base work is yet to be finished.
The parking plaza is being built close to Savour Foods. The plaza has a parking space of 1300 cars. At the ground level, shops would line the plaza. The fifth level will house a food court.
The plaza will have the capacity to accommodate 1,300 vehicles at a time. Shops will be constructed on the ground floor of the plaza which will also increase revenue for the CDA. Open-air restaurants will be set up on the fifth floor.
While the CDA has also failed to ensure parking in basement of commercial buildings. It further added to the burden of vehicles on available parking area. In almost all marakaz of the city, owners of plazas have hardly been using their basements for parking.
The Islamabad Traffic Police had written to the CDA in 2016 about the shortage of parking spaces in Blue Area. It also identified other commercial centers including F-8 Markaz that house city’s district courts as well.
Though CDA had built two underground parking spaces in Jinnah Super Market, that neither resolved the parking issue nor those could not be utilized properly.
