A report headed to council Monday recommends council axe downtown retail spaces in favour of parking.

The report calls to suspend the retail use of the ground floor of the city-owned parking garage at the corner of Pelissier and Park streets.

Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Association chair, Larry Horwitz, said the idea goes against the city's own plan.

"I was always told that we don't have a problem with parking downtown, that there's plenty of parking," Horwitz said. "We should be that lucky, that we should have a problem with parking. We should have a massive amount of people who need parking downtown and really willing to pay extra for parking."

Horwitz said he'll be at the meeting on Monday urging Council not to support the recommendation.

"We're just closing retail and locations for retail downtown continuously. I don't understand where we're going," he said. "This is just contrary to every urban planner, every architect's vision of a downtown."

Horwitz said the city should consider turning over operations of the parking garage to the BIA so it can find retail tenants.