Waterloo Street car park short-listed for EPA award

The EPA awards committee inspected the Waterloo Street car park on June 13th, and will be carrying out similar assessments of the other two finalist sites. One of these is another Q-Park car park – Grand Parade in Cork, southern Ireland – and the other, Vinci’s Champs Elysee car park in Paris.

Waterloo Street underwent a L3.5 million renovation programme completed in November last year and incorporates some exceptional features. Uniquely, the car park’s exterior was clad with 12 kilometres of louvered Siberian Larch wood making it one of Glasgow’s most striking commercial buildings. The car park also includes a brand new front-of-house, fully glazed, air-conditioned parking hosts’ lodge housing CCTV monitoring and IT operations; and state-of-the-art parking technology including proximity card facilities and a node system to enable 24 hour car park access.

Since being shortlisted for the award, further improvements have been made to add weight to the submission. These include enhanced external signage and dramatic improvements to the entry and exit areas, which now incorporate a new suspended ceiling and new lighting to give a more superior look and feel.

The aim of the EPA’s biennial European Parking Awards is to promote and recognise excellence in car parking operations. Assessment criteria for the ‘renovated car parks’ category includes: overall design concept, construction, use of materials and quality of finish, layout and parking bay sizes, safety and security, lighting, cleanliness and maintenance, accessibility by car and on foot, parking equipment, supervision and management, quality of service and relationship with the surrounding townscape.

The winner will be announced at the EPA’s Annual Congress, which is being held in Geneva in September.