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YSU officials favor razing 1,278-space facility
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YSU President David C. Sweet
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Former Sen. Harry Meshel
The university administration wants to eliminate a parking deck and create surface lots.
By Harold Gwin
YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown State University wants to move forward with plans to tear down its Lincoln Avenue parking deck, but not before it creates some surface parking to help cover the loss of the deck’s 1,278 parking spaces.
The goal would be to create 866 surface-lot parking spaces before the deck is razed and replaced with a 375-space surface lot.
YSU administrators outlined the plan at a recent meeting of the Finance and Facilities Committee of the university’s board of trustees, but not everyone was comfortable with the proposal.
The administration offered three possible scenarios.
One would be to tear down and replace the deck at a cost estimated at $25 million.
A second would be a $4.1 million renovation of the deck to give it perhaps an additional 15 years of use.
The third, and the one recommended to trustees, calls for demolition of the deck and replacement of the lost parking with various surface lots, a project with a price tag estimated at $8.67 million.
Trustee Harry Meshel, committee chairman, said he prefers option No. 2. It’s better for the students in terms of parking-space issues and for the university’s uncertain future finances, he said.
However, the university might want to make other use of that site in the near future, said Gene Grilli, vice president for finance and administration, suggesting that it would be ideal space for classrooms, perhaps a new building for the College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
Grilli also pointed out that the deck has some structural problems.
It was built in 1972, and its useful life is nearing its end, university officials have said.
Even if it is preserved for 15 more years, the university still will have to tear it down after that. Demolition cost now is estimated at about $1 million.
Danny O’Connell, director of support services, told the trustees that if the university went with option two, the deck would have to be closed for at least six months, and its parking spaces would be lost during the renovation period.
The trustees already have earmarked $4.1 million for the project, planning to take that money from some $20 million the university intends to borrow next spring. The original intent was to tear down the deck and replace it with a 275-space surface lot on the same site at that price, with the project slated to take from April to August next year.
Grilli said additional funding sources would have to be found to finance the entire $8.67 million recommended plan.
David C. Sweet, YSU president, said that individuals with disabilities and others find the current Lincoln Avenue deck inaccessible. The trustees, in the past, have identified the area west of Fifth Avenue for future parking development, he said.
The administration’s recommendation points out that its proposal provides a cost-effective way of providing for parking needs until YSU can afford to build a new deck west of Fifth Avenue.
YSU’s Student Government Association passed a resolution last spring urging the university to consider renovating the Lincoln Avenue deck rather than razing it, giving the university time to develop other parking facilities.
Under the administration’s plan, demolition would be delayed until 866 surface parking spots are developed at various locations around the eastern, southern and western edges of campus.
That would involve creating 496 permanent spaces on property the university already owns, leasing space for 225 more spaces, creating 75 temporary spaces on YSU land and buying a parcel of property to provide an additional 70 spaces.
Daniel DeMaiolo, student member of the trustee board, questioned the distance some of those scattered sites would be from classroom buildings and asked if the campus shuttle system might be extended to those lots.
That could happen, Grilli said. However, the scattered sites might make it possible for some commuter students to actually park closer to their classrooms than the Lincoln Avenue deck location, he said. The university now has about 6,100 parking spaces, but only about 1,300 of its 14,700 students live on campus.
A fall 2008 parking survey showed that most of the parking lots are never more than about 90 percent occupied, except for the Lincoln Avenue deck, which is generally full between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. weekdays.
Trustee Carole Weimer asked about safety for students who would be parking in the more remote locations.
O’Connell said planners are working with the campus police on finding parking locations and that the police found the proposed sites acceptable. All will be fenced and well-lit, and some already are covered by nearby camera-surveillance systems, he said.
Scott Schulick, trustee president, said the administration report is “a good start for discussion.”
He said he isn’t advocating any of the three options at this point but wants the administration to come up with a final plan to present to the board in December.
gwin@vindy.com
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Comments
I understand that it's time for that deck to go, but I really doubt I'd buy a parking pass if they don't incorporate covered parking at that end of the campus into their plans. As a night student, the last thing I want to do is clean snow off my car after 8 hours of work and 4 hours of school at 9 PM in zero degree weather. Any sort of canopy would do.
YSU, take the least expensive, and most intelligent choice - fix the deck and leave it standing!
As badly as YSU wants to raze a sound structure and lose close to a thousand parking spaces (this story is the first anyone's heard of 'creating' parking spaces prior to razing the deck, and a halfway decent reporter would have included WHERE they propose to locate them, aside from a vague "east, south, and west")
I think someone has their eye on the prime location of the Lincoln Avenue deck. There'll be something other than parking there in 10 years.
Build a new and bigger deck across Fifth ave., using one of the tailgate lots. Have a pedestrian bridge like the one over Wick Ave.
Razing it makes the most sense of all the plans they outlined. It's the most cost effective and beneficial over the long run provided they find away to come close to having a similar number of lots in the end.
With structural problems I doubt they would get 15 years out of it.
All I know is that if they demolish it, I better be getting a hefty discount on my parking pass each semester.
aeparish: don't count on getting a parking discount. Instead, count on more exercise as the parking becomes less convenient.
It's not an issue of convenience; it's an issue of safety.
Also, another problem with replacing one large deck with several smaller lots is the time (and gas) it will take to move from lot to lot until you find a space that's open. While YSU says most lots are only 90% filled, I've found that the smaller the lot, the less likely you are to find an open space. It also diminishes a person's chances of waiting until someone vacates a space, as the number of people leaving a 100-200-space lot at any given time is much smaller than the number of people leaving a 1,200-space deck. So I fear the university will find itself with far more traffic and congestion as students and faculty bump around a far wider area.
Are these new estimates on the costs of demolishing or renovating? Because they surely weren’t what the Student Government was presented with last spring, and it seems peculiar that the estimates would go down instead of increase, especially in this economy. It is truly irresponsible for the administration to get rid of nearly 1,300 parking places and only plan to replace about 2/3 of those spaces when you consider how great the parking crisis is on campus. Parking isn’t a problem for them, since they have reserved lots with adequate spaces next to their building, but ask any student and they’ll tell you something completely different. YSU has yet to show itself to be truly dedicated to creating alternative transportation, which could help alleviate this issue; you can have hundreds of committees with all the best intentions, but they’ll never make progress unless they seriously meet. All of this is only underscored by the increase in enrollment the university has been bragging about since the beginning of the semester. YSU is a commuter school, and the Western Pennsylvania Advantage initiative helped boost these numbers, and I bet these new students aren't on-campus residents. What happens when we have to start turning students away because there is no suitable or reasonable place for them to park?
A. Twyford
Executive Vice President
Student Government Association
OK I agree the Lincoln Ave deck is done, however, there is a current parking problem @ the university, and to tear it down and and put the same amount of parking is just insane, we need the other 877 or so parking spaces now with the lot still standing. Furthermore did anyone even think of putting parking under the new business college being constructed on wood street, that is just common sense to me put an underground 200 to 300 spaces but i guess that would just make things to convenient for the students and faculty.
what should be done is every time YSU builds another Building From Here ON OUT put some parking under it.
The Lincoln deck should be replaced with a deck twice its size come on people there are more than 14,000 students and if half of them are paying more than $75.00 for parking its over half a million a semester and that is if only half buy a pass (to me it sure seems like their selling more passes than there are spots.)
Well I can go on and on about this, but the fact is no one cares and no one is listening.
But if there is anyone out there listing what about the three year old ten feet wide by thirty feet long by 6 feet deep PIT at the rear entrance to Meshel Hall. you literally have to walk over a slab of steel to enter the building
The logic behind the proposed demolition of the Lincoln Avenue parking deck and its subsequent replacement with a surface lot baffles me. The Youngstown State University student body is mainly comprised of commuters who require parking in order to attend classes. The above article argues that many parking lots and decks are not full during most of the day, however the Lincoln Avenue deck is usually full. Logically, that tells me that the Lincoln Avenue offers something that other parking locations does not: convenience. Also, I am guessing, both from observation and by complaints by fellow students, that many are forgoing the purchase of a parking permit and are finding alternative parking - both legally and illegally. I am personally not crazy about the idea of continuing to pay upwards of $75.00 per semester to park when that parking is neither adequate nor convenient.
My fear is that when one looks at the campus of Youngstown State University in the future, it will be wide stretching area of asphalt parking lots. Despite the high cost of replacing the Lincoln Avenue parking deck with a new deck, I believe that this is the most responsible of the choices before YSU's administration and Board of Trustees. Refurbishing the deck is also an appropriate avenue to explore, however I still believe that the eventual plan of action should be to replace the deck with a new one.
This semester, YSU has experienced an exponential growth in student population, and this is expected to continue. Yes, there are more and more students living on campus, but YSU will never be a purely residential campus. Most likely, the necessity for more parking will continue to rise.
A replacement deck will allow YSU to continue its growth as well as provide safe, adequate, and convenient parking for its students.
J. Koneval
Chair, Academic Affairs Committee
YSU Student Government Association