Penrith parking: New multi-storey tower planned for CBD

Bold plans for a new $106 million ‘green’ parking tower and community space with rooftop garden could also help cool the city down.

Penrith's CBD could get more than 700 new parking sports under plans lodged to transform the current parking area on Soper Place. Picture: DBJ Architects

Penrith could soon get a new multi-level, sustainable carpark to help alleviate CBD parking issues and potentially help cool the notoriously hot suburb down.

Think Planners has lodged documents with Penrith Council to build a $106 million nine-storey building with five levels of parking and four levels of commercial space on the existing carpark at Soper Pl, off Lawson St.

There would be 731 carpark spaces over the five levels as well as 24 spots for motorbikes and 42 spots for bicycles.

An artist's impression of a proposed parking and commercial tower planned for Soper Place in Penrith's CBD. Picture: DBJ Architects

There would also be a multi-purpose community space built for markets, functions, and other events, and a green rooftop garden.

According to a planner from Think Planners, the proposal comes on the heels of Penrith Council’s parking analysis and Penrith’s Cooling the City Strategy.

“Soper Place has been identified as an ideal location for the construction of a multi-deck carpark,” they said.

The Soper Place site where a new multi-storey carpark tower could be built. Picture: Six Map

“The Soper Place project is an exciting city-shaping project that will help renew the city centre and will have major benefits for residents, workers, visitors, and local businesses.

“The project seeks to reduce the urban heat effects by introducing features of a green facade, extensive plantings within the public domain and green rooftop which will incrementally cool the city.”

The proposal would replace the existing council-owned carpark near the Penrith Community Health Centre.

The council is also planning a $12 million civic park in the heart of Penrith, bound by Station, Henry and Woodriff streets, and the Allen Place carpark, which could see highrise apartments, shops and cafes built around tree canopies, rain gardens and ponds.

The Soper Place carpark. Picture: Supplied

Vehicles would access the carpark from Soper Place, which would be reconfigured and extended, and exit onto either Woodriff St or Lawson St.

A Traffic Statement prepared by Ason Group found the “proposal is supportable on traffic and transport planning grounds, and will not result in any adverse impacts on the surrounding road network”.