Unfinished parkade at Vancouver airport may be demolished for terminal expansion | Daily Hive

Partially built parkade at Vancouver International Airport could be demolished for future terminal building expansion

The partially built new parkade at Vancouver International Airport. (Google Maps)

The unfinished new additional parkade structure at Vancouver International Airport (YVR) could be torn down as part of a broader plan to modernize ground transportation access or even provide the terminal building with a major expansion.

During her annual address to the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade on Friday, Vancouver International Airport president and CEO Tamara Vrooman said the partially constructed parking structure — visible to travellers for the past few years — reflects outdated assumptions about how passengers get to and from the airport.

This unfinished new parkade is located immediately east of the original parkade and SkyTrain’s YVR Airport Station. Construction on it began in 2017 as one of the many components of YVR’s ambitious pre-pandemic, 20-year, multibillion-dollar expansion and improvement plan, which came to a sudden halt in March 2020 upon the onset of the pandemic. Later in 2020, only the Pier D international terminal building expansion resumed construction, which ultimately reached completion in early 2021, while the new parkade structure and central utilities building with a geoexchange were suspended indefinitely, with $525 million already spent at the time.

At the time of the suspension, Vancouver Airport Authority assumed construction on the new parkade would resume at some point in the future. But that is no longer the case.

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On Friday, Vrooman reiterated that the new parkade was conceived “when we were seeing a growth for single occupancy vehicles coming and parking at the airport.”

Since then, she noted, major shifts in ground transportation patterns have changed the equation, especially the impact from the introduction of ride-hailing in Metro Vancouver since 2020.

tamara vrooman yvr vancouver international airport f

Tamara Vrooman, president and CEO of Vancouver International Airport, during her address to the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade on April 10, 2026. (Kenneth Chan)

“Since that time, we’ve seen the introduction of Lyft and Uber, fundamental change to the taxi industry that’s come as a result of ridehailing, and a total rebalancing of the way that employees and passengers come and depart our airport,” she said.

“We assumed that there would be a time when we would continue to complete it, but our analysis shows that it’s not required.”

Currently, 65 per cent of passengers arrive or depart using shared transportation or other modes rather than private vehicles, such as ride-hailing and public transit — especially SkyTrain’s Canada Line. Ride-hailing services like Lyft and Uber now account for 24 per cent of all passenger trips to and from the airport.

The unfinished five-storey parkade was designed to offer an additional 2,170 public vehicle parking stalls, plus 665 car rental stalls. It would also be directly connected to the existing parkade.

vancouver international airport yvr parkade parking lot expansion construction june 2022

The unfinished new parkade at Vancouver International Airport. (Google Maps)

vancouver international airport yvr parkade expansion construction

The unfinished new parkade at Vancouver International Airport. (Google Maps)

Instead of spending an estimated $300 million to complete the parkade, Vrooman said the airport authority is now considering major alternative uses for the high-value site, which is located within the central area of the terminal building’s horseshoe-shaped access road of Grant McConachie Way.

“There’s better things for us to spend about another $300 million to complete it. So, while nobody likes to build something and then not have it used for its original purpose, we do think it’s a responsible thing to do.”

She added that this pivot is also supported by a credit rating agency. Vrooman shared the airport authority received a credit rating upgrade last month to AA — the highest in the airport authority’s history. She says that only about a dozen airports worldwide have access to credit markets at similarly low rates.

“It was acknowledged by the rating agency, which gave us that rating after that decision was made to have that land used for something else,” she said.

She described the land occupied by the unfinished parkade as “very high-volume real estate” that would be better used to support other major airport operations and needs.

One possible alternative use of the unfinished new parkade footprint is to create a new integrated ground transportation hub that combines public transit, ride-hailing, taxis, and other pick-up/drop-off needs.

“What could some of those purposes be? What we see in other world-class airports, a better integrated ground transportation. At the moment, it’s not exactly intuitive. Things that make our terminal work really, really well from a passenger point of view, the fact that it basically goes like this, right? With a bunch of fingers out in the central area, makes it very, very difficult from a curb access point of view. It’s literally at the narrowest hairpin part,” she said.

Beyond ground transportation, the new parkade site could instead be repurposed to support a major terminal expansion building — a move that would increase passenger amenities and operational capacity.

“We’re also looking at options where we might expand the terminal towards that inner area, kind of renew the curb, which would allow a lot more room, post-security, for food, for beverage, for services, but also for those vital infrastructure services that allow them to meet the needs that facilitate that part of the road,” explained Vrooman.

She did not provide any global examples of terminal building expansions into inner areas, but one notable comparable facility for its similar orientation within the overall terminal layout is the renowned domed Jewel complex at Singapore Changi Airport, which is regularly ranked as the world’s best airport. Jewel is a nature-themed entertainment and retail complex featuring hundreds of shops and restaurants, a hotel, attractions, gardens, and check-in facilities.

Changi Airport Group has reported seeing a significant increase in non-aeronautical ancillary revenues ever since the opening of Jewel, which sees hundreds of thousands of visitors per day. YVR’s closest Jewel equivalent is McArthurGlen Vancouver Airport Outlet Centre, with Vancouver Airport Authority owning a 50 per cent stake in the shopping mall and seeing consistent annual non-aeronautical revenue returns.

vancouver international airport yvr unfinished new additional parkade

Location of the unfinished new additional parkade at Vancouver International Airport. (Google Maps/Daily Hive)

Changi Jewel terminal complex at Singapore Changi Airport. (Google Maps)

Changi Jewel complex at Singapore Changi Airport. (Travel Man/Shutterstock)

Jewel Changi Airport in Singapore (Shutterstock)

Prior to the pandemic, as part of YVR’s previous 20-year expansion and improvement plan, the next terminal expansion after the completion of the Pier D extension was expected to be the major eastward expansion of Pier F sometime later in the 2020s, extending immediately east of the existing U.S. transborder concourse. That previous plan also envisioned extending other piers and widening other sections of the terminal building over two decades.

In 2017, when the previous expansion and improvement strategy was established, YVR saw 24.2 million passengers and was forecasting the possibility of staggering growth, potentially reaching 31 million passengers by 2022 — a significant figure similar to what Toronto-Pearson International Airport handled in 2010.

YVR is beginning to return to its pre-pandemic growth trajectory, recording a record 26.9 million passengers in 2025 — the highest annual total in its history.

Vrooman also touched on the Canada Line, noting that it is a success and “fantastic service” and that the airport authority is continually assessing the technical feasibility, from an engineering standpoint, of twinning this SkyTrain line’s final section leading to YVR Airport Station.

In the 2000s, the two 650-metre final segments of the Canada Line leading to YVR Airport Station and Richmond-Brighouse Station were built as single-track sections as a cost-saving measure. This also meant that both terminus stations — at the airport and in Richmond City Centre — were constructed with a single track and a single side platform. However, 16 years after the line’s opening, growing ridership is contributing to increased crowding and circulation challenges at both stations, with YVR Airport Station facing additional constraints due to its narrow single platform and ticketing concourse design and the space required for passengers with baggage.

skytrain canada line yvr airport station

YVR Airport Station on SkyTrain’s Canada Line. (Kenneth Chan)

In terms of near-term improvements to the airport, Vrooman shared that the airport authority has spent roughly $8 million in recent months on maintenance and repair work to get ready for the influx of travellers for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Extensive staff training is also underway to optimally accommodate the surge in passengers, which will coincide with what is expected to be a record-breaking cruise ship season at the Canada Place terminal in downtown Vancouver.

She added that YVR is also expecting a significant influx of private jets, having effectively conducted a trial run in late 2024 when BC Place Stadium hosted the final three concerts of Taylor Swift’s global The Eras Tour. For the FIFA World Cup, the stadium is set to host seven matches, including two knockout-stage games.

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