Monday, August 24, 1998
HVAC renovations begin
University Communications to handle open records requests
Staff Council holds first meeting of the year

From the ground up
New parking deck rises on North Campus; other projects near completion

Beth Roberts

You can’t miss it. The new North Campus parking deck now rises to its full seven levels on the Thomas Street side, a large sign of hope for those who must find parking on North Campus.
When complete, the deck will hold about 1,200 vehicles, an increase of about 1,000 over the parking lots which it replaced, according to George Stafford, director of auxiliary services at UGA.
“North Campus has historically been where parking is most tight,” he says, “and this structure will take care of a lot of that demand. At night, it will provide safe parking for students visiting the library, which has always been a concern.”
The deck will function as a regular employee lot, with no charge beyond the standard parking fee. About 500 parking spaces will also be reserved for students, Stafford says, although the mechanics have not yet been worked out. He hopes to develop a system that will allow student parking without greatly increasing the traffic flow on Thomas Street.
Construction was to have been complete by December but is running about six weeks behind, according to Daniel Sniff, director of the Office of University Architects. Higher
than normal temperatures this summer,combined with the current shortage of construction workers throughout the Southeast, have caused the delay.
“The contractor has put more people on it,” he says, “but it will be next semester before construction is finished.”
The deck occupies the site of the Tanner Lumber Company, whose 19th-century front offices were preserved and renovated for use by UGA’s graphic design program. The structure, financed by general revenue bonds to be repaid with parking revenues, was originally planned to be six stories. Rock formations forced a
redesign to a slightly smaller, taller building, but the designers tried to minimize the visual effect from North Campus.
“It’s a very large structure, and we were sensitive to that,” says Stafford. “It’s located as close to Thomas Street as possible, and it’s built down the hill, with seven levels on Thomas but only four on Jackson Street.”
Jackson Street itself is being redesigned, and construction on this project began this summer outside Terrell Hall. The goal is a safer and more attractive border to historic North Campus, according to Sniff.
Power lines will be buried and sidewalks improved. Bus stops will be consolidated to one area on each side of the street, with room for buses to pull out of traffic. Eventually, Sniff says, parking on Jackson will be eliminated, although most of the parking changes will take place after the new deck is operating.

Elsewhere
Several other construction and renovation projects on campus either are complete or are nearing completion:
• The physical education building has been renovated for the departments of dance and marine sciences.
• The College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences has occupied its new alumni and student activities center in the Four Towers building.
• The Bulldog Room in the Tate Student Center, rechristened the Bulldog Cafe, is open, with more seats and a more efficient plan.
• The new headquarters building for the Garden Club of Georgia at the State Botanical Garden is nearly complete.
• The first phase of the expansion of the intramural tennis complex is complete, and construction of the final phase has begun. The animal health sciences research center in the College of Veterinary Medicine will be completed in early fall.
• Construction continues on the administrative offices in the former museum building on North Campus, with completion expected in April.
Construction is beginning on a second-floor addition to the Staff Training and Development building on Thomas Street.
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