Belhaven University expects to start construction this winter on a $10.5-million parking garage, which will give students another place to park besides on neighboring streets.
The plans for the five-story garage that will be built in the center of campus have been submitted to the city of Jackson for site plan review.
The plans are making their way through approvals,” said Jordan Rae Hillman, director of planning for the city.
Casey Creasey, executive director of the Greater Belhaven Foundation, said use of the garage, which is expected to be completed by the fall semester, will clear some of the neighborhood streets where students have had to park. Students park along Pinehurst, Peachtree, Belhaven and Arlington streets as well as on Greymont and Euclid avenues.
“I think it will help with some of the congestion in those areas,” she said.
Virgi Lindsay, a Belhaven resident who represents Ward 7 on the Jackson City Council, considers the garage a positive development for the neighborhood.
“We have co-existed with the university for many years,” she said. “There have always been healthy parking issues, and this will help both the neighborhood and university by getting cars off the residential streets.”
An on-campus parking garage has been on the university’s wish list for many years, but the expense prohibited it until an anonymous donor provided the entire $10.5 million to fund it, said Roger Parrott, Ph.D., president of Belhaven University.
“I’ve been a university president for 33 years, and I never expected anyone to give money for a parking garage,” he said. “It’s pretty remarkable.”
Parrott calls the garage “a game changer” for the campus.
“It makes the best use of our land,” he said. “We’re a small campus, and we can’t take up everything with parking. It gives us enough capacity to assure that we could build another residence hall eventually and another classroom building eventually.”
The garage will be constructed over the existing parking lot between Heidelberg Gymnasium and the Dr. Billy Kim International Center and in front of Lakeview Residence Hall. Access will be from the two university entrances off Peachtree Street, with one entrance putting drivers at the lowest level of the garage and the other higher in the garage.
The location in the center of campus will help assure the garage is convenient for students, faculty members and staff, Parrott said, noting that parking garages on the exterior of a university campus are not always well used.
Equipped with security cameras and well lit, the garage will be used by residential students as well as faculty, staff and commuters, Parrott said.
“Now that doesn’t mean that there will be no students parking on the streets,” he said. “Students will park where it’s close to where they want to go.”
A brick exterior will allow the garage to blend in with other buildings on campus, he said. Two of the five stories will be below grade from that seen on Peachtree Street. “It won’t feel overwhelming from the front of the campus,” Parrott said.
Parrott hopes construction on the garage can begin by the end of January so it can be completed by July and start being used during the fall semester.
Another project under way at Belhaven is the construction on a $1 million media and operations center for the athletic bowl. Work is expected to be completed in April.
“When we built the Belhaven athletic bowl, we ran out of money before we built the press box,” Parrott said. “We had a cluster of four shipping containers that we used. They did the job but didn’t look very good. They’re going away and a lovely brick building is going in that spot.”
Sixty percent of the funds have been raised for the media and operations center, Parrott said, and fundraising continues.
Probity Contracting Co. is the general contractor for both the parking garage and media and operations center, Parrott said. THA Consulting of Alpharetta, Georgia is the parking garage architect, and Weir Boerner Allin is a consulting architect on the garage and primary architect for the media and operations center.
Belhaven has an enrollment of about 4,000 students, including those in a traditional program, online classes and graduate programs.
