NMU is shedding a parking lot from its roster before the beginning of the fall 2016 semester. Lot 46, which sits off Wright Street across from Hunt Hall, is being purchased by the city of Marquette as the new location of the city maintenance center. The current municipal center, which is on Baraga Avenue, houses operations for maintenance on city vehicles such as snow plows and city vehicles. This activity, as well as the storage of road salt and sand, will be shifted to the new location next to campus over the next several years.
According to Marquette City Manager Michael Angeli, the city is moving its municipal service center because the land it currently occupies will be used by Duke-Lifepoint for a new hospital. The timeline for development on the new hospital isn’t certain yet, but the city will break ground for its new municipal service facility in early June, firmly decommissioning NMU’s Lot 46.
“Lot 46 currently has the capacity for 272 vehicles,” director of NMU Public Safety and Police Services Mike Bath said. “The most full we’ve ever seen it, between 235 and 245 spots were filled.”
Bath went on to say that in spite of initial concerns for displaced student parking spots, parking surveys conducted by Public Safety show adequate places for both commuters and residents around pre-existing university lots.
“Students love to talk about parking problems [on NMU’s campus],” Mike Bath, director of NMU Public Safety, said, “but the reality is that so many lots are being underutilized. There’s plenty of space for all residents and commuters to park.”
The biggest reason for not constructing a new parking lot, as opposed to utilizing what’s already available, is what one might expect: money. A new parking surface, according to Bath, costs approximately $2,500 per space; a relatively small parking lot of 100 spaces would therefore cost a quarter of a million dollars, and that’s before installing lights, fencing or curbing.
“It’s just a glaring safety hazard to have students playing ‘Frogger’ to get from their parking spots across Wright Street to their dorms,” Bath said.
Wright is a busy street indeed, and even though no pedestrian incidents have been reported at the Lot 46 crossing, Bath said he would feel much better once the risk was eliminated altogether.
Bath pointed out on a map where the university is planning to funnel residential students now that they won’t be able to park where they’re used to parking.
“The west end of Lot 36, south of Spalding Hall, will be re-designated as resident student parking and the lot number will be changed to Lot 46,” Bath said. “The south section of Lot 22, the Services Building lot, will be re-designated resident student parking, as will the southwest section of Lot 47, by the Woodland Park apartments.”
Bath added that the only restricted residential lots remaining will be the West and Spooner lots; those will remain closed to students not registered as residents of those two dormitories. Overall, the parking spaces lost with Lot 46 will be easily redistributed through existing parking lots around campus, Bath said.
Parking permits for the fall semester will go on sale July 25.
