The University is planning to begin the construction of new parking lots and the renovation of current parking lots in November. This will cause certain lots to be closed throughout the semester, temporarily limiting the number of parking spaces. “The University saw the surveys, heard what the students had to say about the condition of the streets and parking lots, and the students want more parking spaces,” said Michael Davis, assistant vice president for business affairs for procurement and physical plant operations.
All of the hard-surfaced parking lots will be resurfaced, and shell and limestone parking lots will no longer exist. Everything will be completely resurfaced, according to Davis.
“The only thing that we have etched in stone is that probably some time close to Thanksgiving, we will start work on three areas, which we plan on having finished for the start of the spring semester,” Davis said.
According to Davis, those areas include: north of Ellender residence hall in the green space between Ellender and the parking lot on the side of the cafeteria, the parking lot near Bowie road on the side of the tennis courts, and the fenced in area by the Greenhouse.
“The intent is to have those three areas finished and ready for the spring so that as we do begin closing down streets and parking lots, we’ll have other parking areas ready,” Davis said.
The parking lots that will be constructed in November and December are going to add about 270-280 additional parking spots. This will add extra parking as parking lots begin to temporarily shut down due to construction.
“We’re still going to have enough parking on campus; students just won’t be able to park exactly where they want to park as we’re doing the work,” Davis said. “We will do our best to announce schedules ahead of time and do everything we can to minimize the effects on the students.”
Davis said that this is a very lengthy process. Preliminary approval had been given for quite some time. On Friday Lionel Naquin, vice president of finance and administration, Davis, the architect, the designer, the bond council, the investment banker, the financial adviser and one student will be going to the Board of Supervisor’s meeting to get final approval of the entire project. On Sept.21 they must go before the Board of Regents to also get final approval for the project. In October, they will go before the bond commission, and the bonds will be sold right after that.
“There’s been alot of activity taking place during the summer,” Davis said. “It all had to be done before the actual construction starts. Now everything is in position so we can start rapidly moving.”
The University particularly chose to begin construction in November because students are gone for the Thanksgiving break, and when classes resume, they are only here for a few days before the semester ends, Davis said.
The rest of this project has not been planned out as of yet, because, according to Davis, it is going to take some coordination. The University will take into consideration activities that are going to be taking place around campus at certain times. Davis said they would most likely work with University Police, student affairs, and academic affairs to see what events are going on so that the construction can be worked around it.
The completion of this project is planned for Fall 2006.
According to Davis there is excess parking on this campus in the first place.
“The general perception of students is that we don’t have enough parking on campus. I think we’ve pretty much proved that that is not the case. We have plenty of parking; it’s just not being used.”
The lot at the west side of the football stadium last year, during the busiest time, was only about 2/3 full, and no one parks on the other side of the stadium, Davis said.
“I know not many people want to park there, but there will be space on campus for everyone to park.”
Students will have problems driving around when construction begins because certain streets will be temporarily shut down during this process, but Davis said there is absolutely no way to avoid this.
“For those students who may think, ‘Why didn’t they just do this over the summer?’: Three months is not enough. We’re going to start work in November, and it’s going to be non-stop until the finish next August.”
“It’s going to cause inconvenience for everybody. There’s no way to get around it,” Davis said. “There’s no way we can do this project within two or three months because it’s too big.”
The estimated cost for the entire renovation and construction of the new parking lots is about $3.2 million.
“We obviously don’t have that kind of money on hand, and at the old rate of the decals, we would not have had enough money to do these projects period,” Davis said.
The University looked to a non-profit corporation that sells bonds that would allow the $3.2 million to be immediately available. Enough revenues must be coming in to support the bond, and the University determined that raising decal prices to $50 would allow the financial capability of being able to sell $3.2 million worth of bonds to do the project all at one time, Davis said.
“We’re just going to be patient and understanding. With improvement comes a little hardship,” Davis said. “The ultimate results are going to be very pleasing to the students, and I think they’ll be happy when they come back to school the following fall.
