This will be the home of Kelowna’s deepest underground parkade

UBC Okanagan says it's redefining urban infrastructure and sustainable construction practices in Kelowna.

Construction is underway on a state-of-the-art underground parking garage for what will be the tallest building between Vancouver and Calgary: UBCO Downtown.

This four-storey, below-grade parkade, located on the corner of Doyle Avenue and St. Paul Street — built to serve the new facility and reduce parking impacts in the area—will set a record as the deepest one in Kelowna.

“One of the unique things here is in Kelowna most of the parkades are built above ground, which is pretty typical,” UBC Properties Trust Vice President/COO Rob Brown told Kelowna10 at the excavation site. “It's partly because of cost, but it’s also because of the technical difficulty of going down beside a lake.”

It employs an innovative ‘tanked’ design that will use a special waterproof concrete mix to accommodate the city’s high water table.

Unlike conventional construction where water accumulation around the foundation is drained or pumped away—potentially carrying away vital sediments and destabilizing surrounding soils—the tanked design keeps the water and soils in place, ensuring hydrostatic pressure balance.

“So, you're tanking a swimming pool, but you're trying to keep the water on the outside, not the inside,” Brown explained “So as we go down, all the safety measures are in place to make sure that this unique parkade gets built correctly and safely.”

Ground level gateway

In line with UBCO’s commitment to sustainability, the fill extracted during the parkade’s construction will be transported to the main campus, providing necessary and high-quality material for slope stabilization, and aiding in the area’s future utilization—all while minimizing waste generation and saving on future trucking emissions.

“This move exemplifies our dedication to minimizing waste and optimizing resources during the construction process,” adds Rob Einarson, Associate Vice-President for Finance and Operations at UBC Okanagan. “It’s a testament to our commitment to sustainability and our responsibility as a steward of the environment.”

He also notes the underground parking is one of several sustainability aspects considered with the downtown project.

For example, the inclusion of housing within the building will offer convenient accommodation options for students and faculty, potentially eliminating or reducing the need for daily commutes.

“We're close to the Queensway bus exchange, we're close to the active transportation, and we're hoping that a lot of the students that are studying in the building are actually going to choose to live there” Einarson said. “So, their commute is actually going up and down the elevator and it's not getting into a vehicle and driving around campus.”

Einarson added that by pushing the parking below grade, UBCO Downtown will be able to maintain a welcoming and accessible street front, with a planned coffee shop and large, open-air seating area.

“For us, that experience not to have a parkade for four storeys was important, both for functional reasons and also for our community engagement,” he explained “We want this to be a gateway and doorway for the community into UBC and not just into a hallway and a bank of elevators.”

With construction for UBCO Downtown already under way, the university expects doors to open to the new building in 2027.