A decision is due on whether the car park at one of the biggest shopping centres in Reading will be sold off to its owner and developer.
The Broad Street Mall is set to undergo redevelopment after plans were approved to add 643 apartments to the site.
The project involves the partial demolition of the rear of the mall building to make way for four new towers.
The demolition will result in the loss of eight existing units: seven units along Queens Walk, including those occupied by Sushimania and Bierhaus, and part of the old TK Maxx, which was taken over by the Well Home store in June.
It also means a reduction in car parking to 426 spaces.
The car park currently has a total of 745 spaces, with 718 regular spaces, 17 for disabled blue badge holders and 10 parent and child spaces.
Councillors from Reading Borough Council are due to decide what will happen with the car park during construction and once the development is complete.
The council runs the car park on a leasehold basis, in an agreement made in March 1974 and expiring in March 2097.
So the council has run it for more than 51 years, with 72 years remaining on the lease.
Councillors must decide what to do with the car park going forward.
Options include ‘surrendering’ the whole car park to the mall owner AEW, surrendering part of it, or doing nothing.
The full surrender would involve the sale of the lease to AEW, called Option A.
The partial surrender would involve making the car park available to AEW to enable them to carry out the development.
The car park would be given up to AEW for the time required for the construction without selling the car park lease to the company.
Once the development is complete, the council would surrender its lease of the whole car park to AEW, which would grant the council a new lease of the part of the car park which has not been developed.
This is called Option B.
The options are laid out in a report by Emma Gee, the council’s executive director for growth and neighbourhood services. She has recommended option A.
Councillors on the policy committee are set to make a decision at a meeting on Wednesday, September 17.
Part of the meeting will be held in private to discuss confidential financial information.
It is unclear how much AEW would have to pay to obtain the car park lease.
The sale could mean that AEW would have the right to set parking fares and keep the money spent by visitors.
According to the council’s annual parking services report 2023/24, it made £2 million (£2,041,728) in revenue from its car parks, with a spend of £1,951,815 being outstripped by £3,993,543 of income.
The report does not state how much was raised from each car park. 33 penalty charge notices were issued for rule breaches at the mall car park in that year.
