Construction will begin Feb. 16 on a new parking deck in the northwest quadrant of campus. It will eventually provide more than 800 additional parking spaces for students and employees.
The $11 million, 57,600-square-foot northwest parking deck will be constructed over existing surface parking (lot W05) at the corner of Hull and Florida streets. It will be built in two phases and when completed will accommodate 1,025 vehicles.
The deck will replace 218 current surface parking spaces. About 280 people who have permits to park in these spaces will be relocated to other spaces, says Joyce Hardman, director of parking and transportation. These people will be notified this week by e-mail, with relocations effective Feb. 16.
Hardman says the deck will relieve pressure on one of the campus’s highest-demand areas for parking. More than 2,100 people are on waiting lists for spaces in the area, she says.
Danny Sniff, campus architect, says the deck will immediately be useful to students using the new Student Learning Center at night. Later it will serve major buildings planned for the area, such as a special collections library.
As part of the construction, the Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic office on Florida Avenue will be relocated to offices in the former Athens Housing Authority building at the corner of Waddell and Newton streets. The UGA Real Estate Foundation will assist in the design and building of the new RFB&D offices.
The deck’s first phase, which will have 730 spaces, will include the building’s southern end nearest Baxter Street north to within 65 feet of the RFB&D building. This phase should be completed in August, says Sniff.
Work on the second phase, with 295 additional spaces, will begin later in the year after the RFB&D office relocation. The completion of both phases will add a net total of 807 parking spaces to the area, Hardman says.