Confused by the new parking restrictions and hostile signage at Lynn Valley? Creeped out by the guy in blue that follows you around the parking lot? Not sure where LV shopping Centre starts and where LV Village takes over? Wondering why they can’t just enforce a one or two-hour parking limit and let customers park where they want?
I called Lynn Valley Centre manager, Lorelei Guthrie yesterday to find out. Guthrie has a long career managing shopping centres around the Lower Mainland, and sadly for her, landed at Lynn Valley in October, the same day the parking police were installed.
Turns out there are actually four different landlords in this little area. Lynn Valley Village constitutes the library, Delaney’s, etc; the Lynn Valley Centre is the sad, aging, mall. Safeway has and patrols its own parking lot. The grey area is the parking lot outside the Black Bear, where staff encourage anyone who has had too much to drink to leave their car overnight. You don’t see any signs there.
“We’ve been experiencing quite a parking crunch,” says Guthrie. “We discovered that we were being used as a park and ride, we discovered that companies from across the street were asking their staff to park onsite, and it was taking away from our customer’s ability to come and park,” she said.
If you’re heading for a hot yoga class, wanting to return a book, or grab a coffee, then you need to park in the underground lot that’s accessible from Mountain Highway.
But if you want to grab some cash from the ATM at Vancity, buy clothes at Winners, pick up bananas at Safeway, and have lunch at the Black Bear, do you have to move your car four times?
“It’s a juggle and it’s one that we are still struggling with,” says Guthrie. “There’s no firm line because we are so blended.”
Things aren’t expected to change for another two years when a new parkade will be built, although Guthrie says the guards will be gone after Christmas.
I noticed today that there were a lot of empty parking spaces. Probably left by people on their way to other centres where they can shop in peace.
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