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Update: Parking Decks New deck coming to West Campus By Jon Samon News Staff ATLANTA November 13, 1998
 The lack of parking spaces on campus has always aggravated students. Some residents are reluctant to move their cars at night for fear of losing their parking space while others simply park illegally. The difficulty is that there is a tremendous amount of students with cars on campus that need a place to park, yet there is only a finite amount of spaces available.
In response to the need for more parking space, plans are in the works for a new parking deck which, along with the Curran Street, Peters, Student Center, Burge and Wardlaw decks, will now be the sixth parking deck on campus. The new deck will be located on Atlantic Drive, between Tenth Street and Ferst Drive, across from the Facilities Building.
Planning for the new deck started about 18 months ago and included Board of Regents approval. Rosalind Meyers, Associate Vice President of Auxiliary Services was able to give a basic timeline for the overall process.
"The deck is currently in the schematic and functional design phase. Preliminary design should begin in December. In mid-January, construction documents will begin, which will take three months. In April, the contract will be bid. Bidding, bid opening and agency approvals generally take 9 days, which takes us to July 1999, the construction start date," said Meyers. Assuming that everything goes along as planned, the estimated completion date is August 1, 2000.
The deck will include between 750 and 850 spaces spread throughout five levels, including the roof level. The total cost for this project is budgeted at $10,000,000.
The zone for the new deck has yet to be determined. According to Meyers, "It's too early to say, since our parking policies are still evolving. We'll have to determine who will be displaced by construction and where those folks will be relocated."
This will be the first deck built since the Curran Street deck was completed in 1996. There is another parking deck looming on the horizon as the SAC II plans include a 550-space deck to be added to the rear of the building.
Student opinion towards the deck has been generally positive as many students see more parking spaces as a certain win-win situation. "It's definitely going to be good to have more parking spaces because it'll help to decrease the overcrowding of the lots that we now deal with. However, they could have taken care of this problem earlier by making the Curran Street deck a few stories larger," said Nick Olander, a sophomore.
"I think it's a good indication of how large the student population is growing here at Tech, and how the school needs to accommodate us better. I remember I stood in line for 3.5 hours for a parking permit and paid $280, and the first day that I tried to park, there were no spaces for me," said Albert Lee, a commuting sophomore. "I hope they can take better precautions against parking violators, such as those that take up spaces, but didn't pay for a permit."
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Copyright © 1998 by Gregory S. Scherrer, Editor and by the Student Publications Board
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