Parking problems: a thing of the (soon to be) past

A+full+parking+Lot+F+during+the+middle+of+a+weekday.+Photo+by+John+Fordiani.

A full parking Lot F during the middle of a weekday. Photo by John Fordiani.

If you’re tired of getting to school, circling several parking lots looking for a spot so you’re not late to that math class again, worry no more – EC’s working on adding more parking spots.

“Currently, it hasn’t actually improved. It’s getting ready to improve,” Tom Brown, director of facilities, said. “We haven’t added any more parking stalls. We are getting ready to with a couple of projects that are coming up in some of the construction. We will be opening more spaces but currently we have the same amount of spaces as we have had the last couple of years.”

According to the most updated count Brown had, EC has 5,018 parking spots, but they’re not all in use because the new construction projects are occupying them.

“We are going to add Lot C and we just got that in the design phase so we haven’t identified how many new parking stalls we will have there, but we estimate between 1,400 and 1,500 stalls,” Brown said.

The new expansion of Lot C will be built where the Technical Arts Building is located, Brown said. The cost of the demolition and construction of Lot C is estimated to be $33 million, he added.

Rod McMillan, systems supervisor, said another big improvement is the construction of a parking structure; it will be built where Shops is and it will be a three-story building.

Brown also said that the biggest improvement is Lot H because the parking structure holds 1,100 parking spots and they were added from 2006 to 2008.

Lot F will be another lot that gets renovated. It was built in 1968, so it will be up to code, in accordance with the American Disability Act. This renovation will cost $28 million, Brown said.

New additions in parkings lots include ADA parking in the front of the lots that the college didn’t have 10 years ago, Brown said.

“Also, when we do the renovation to parking Lot F, we will be adding more stalls to it just because the way it’s in design,” Brown said. “It’s going to stay the same size but it will be more efficient and I believe we will be adding 80 stalls. It’s in the design phase right now.”

Michael Blada, services supervisor, said that Facilities is trying and working to improve the parking spots without over building and wasting money.

“I believe that this will benefit the college very well because all of our parking is at the very south part or at the very west portion, so by having Lot C up here is closer to the instructions, so this will serve the students and staff very well and being more centrally located to a lot of the upper programs,” Brown said.