Collegiate Times

Parking at Virginia Tech is undergoing some major changes. Construction of the new 98,000 square-foot Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science building and a 45,000 square-foot surge building will displace a number of student, faculty and staff parking spaces.

Earlier this month, construction of the ICTAS building resulted in the partial closing of the faculty and staff spaces in the Durham Lot, which will completely close in the next few weeks, said Steve Mouras, director of transportation. The faculty and staff spots lost in the Durham Lot were replaced by converting 110 commuter and graduate spots in Perry Lot 3 to faculty and staff spots.

The surge building will cause a temporary closure of the Lower Stanger Lot. More commuter and graduate spots in Perry Lot 3 will be converted to faculty and staff spots to account for this loss as well.

The faculty and staff spaces in the Lower Stanger lot will reopen after the building is taken down, but the commuter and graduate section will be permanently closed, Mouras said.

The plan for a surge building was proposed a year ago, said Dixon Hanna, associate provost for academic planning, resources and space. It came about as a result of several large renovations in store for the university, beginning with the renovation of Cowgill Hall in summer 2007.

?We were struggling with some strategy on how to maintain space while vacating buildings,? Hanna said.

Hanna credits Jim Hyatt, executive vice president and chief operating officer, who used a surge building at the University of California at Berkeley, for the idea.

?It will be a reasonable-looking, long, flat structure and it will fit with the character of the area,? Hanna said. ?It will serve our purposes for about 10 to 12 years.?

The exact date to begin construction on the surge building is not yet determined, but construction is expected to last a little over six months, said Hugh Latimer, a Virginia Tech campus planning architect.

?We do recognize the inconvenience it will create,? Hanna said. ?We are struggling with the balance between a need for parking and where to put these buildings. The intention has been to provide additional parking.?

The new parking lot on Smithfield Road is one location for additional parking. This lot will consist of 335 commuter and graduate spaces, Mouras said.

The Smithfield lot is not remotely close to the closed lots, however, Mouras said. It is not a final solution to the parking situation, which is one being experienced at many other universities of similar size, he said.

?Parking is slowly being pushed to the perimeters and being replaced by structures,? Mouras said. ?It makes more sense to build on a parking lot than to take away what little green space we have left.?

In the end, the university will likely build a parking deck, Hanna said.

?The long-term solution to replace parking is the construction of a parking structure that holds 1,000 to 1,200 spots,? Mouras said. This structure would be built around 2009 or 2010.