In the midst of recession and budget cuts the University of Georgia has begun construction on two parking decks at the cost of approximately $20 million, that will be paid with funds from parking fees, said Sean Rogers, the director of capital budgeting.
The university is realizing about $2 million in savings on the projects because of the recession, Rogers said.
“It’s basic supply and demand, “ Rogers said. “Construction companies have less work. They are hungry for work, so costs are coming down.”
“These savings will allow us to undertake some infrastructure work related to the decks that was not originally included in the project scope due to budgetary concerns,” Rogers said.
The savings will be used to add features to the decks, said Krista Coleman-Silvers, the project manager for the construction.
The features will include a canopy from the parking deck to the Performing Arts Center Complex and brick facing, Coleman-Silvers said. Another feature will be a loop road around the intramural fields deck. The road will allow buses to turn around without having to make tight maneuvers.
A $9.8 million deck for the performing arts complex on River Road will have 458 spaces, helping to offset the loss of approximately 250 spaces when the Lamar Dodd School of Art was built, Danny Sniff, associate vice president for facilities planning said.
A $9.2 million intramural fields deck on College Station Road will have 489 parking spaces, and is being built over a surface parking lot that had a little over 100 spaces, Sniff said.
The university will not own the decks, said Rogers. Instead, the private UGA Real Estate Foundation will lease the land from the university and pay for the construction by selling tax-exempt bonds. The foundation will lease the decks back to the University for 29 years. After the lease is over, the university will own the land and the decks, Rogers said.
The locations for the decks were chosen to help meet the overall campus plan to have parking decks situated around the perimeter of campus, Sniff said. This diverts drivers from the epicenter of campus and encourages them to use mass transit “reducing congestion on campus.”
The performing arts location was chosen because of the high number of people attending performances at Hugh-Hodgson Hall and art exhibits at the Lamar Dodd School of Art and the Georgia Museum of Art, Sniff said. The performing arts deck has a connection to mass transit, Sniff said, because it is adjacent to the railroad. “It could, in the future, be part of alternative transportation on campus,” Sniff said.
Sniff said more and more parking patrons request the intramural fields lots because it is easier to get a seat on the bus. Therefore, it was an obvious choice.
However, some member of the Athens community were opposed to the deck being built at the intramural fields because it seemed out of place in the green surroundings, according to the Athens-Banner Herald. Still the Board of Regents approved the construction of both decks in February.
The intramural fields deck is scheduled to open in late August or early September 2009, and the performing arts center deck will open in late November 2009, Coleman-Silvers said.
The intramural fields deck will be permit parking only, said Linda Norton, the operations and enforcement manager of parking services. The performing arts center deck will have hourly parking and permit parking.
