Cal State Long Beach parking will undergo a redevelopment phase this April that will last until August 2016 and will impact the flow of parking on campus.
The areas affected will include Lot 7, an employee parking lot, and South Campus Drive and the South Campus Turnaround, both of which have metered parking.
The reconstruction of Lot 7, located right off of South Campus Drive, will include an additional 161 parking spaces, electric vehicle charging stations, and solar canopies to provide shade for many of the spaces.
After construction is done, Lot 7 will remain a lot solely for employee use, according to Mike Uhlenkamp, the CSULB Executive Director of News for Government and Media Relations.
This construction will begin right before final exams and commencement, both of which traditionally create parking issues on their own without construction. The Parking Advisory Committee is still developing official parking alternatives for commencement.
“I was shocked that they would do it in the springtime because we can’t find parking now,” English professor Nancy Strow Sheley said. “I just came back at 1 [p.m.], and I was lucky to find a place. You can’t leave campus and come back for any reason. There are not enough spots now.”
To accommodate those affected by the closure of the lot, Lot 17 in front of Brotman Hall will be converted to employee parking only, and employees are also being encouraged to park in parking structure 3 and Lot 11A, at the corner of Atherton Street and Palo Verde Avenue.
“We honestly need more parking, too,” senior geography major Janet Solis said. “Because it’s packed, it took me 40 minutes just to find a parking spot for what was a 10-minute meeting.”
“I don’t think I want to say that I’d rather faculty have parking than student [parking], because I know it’s tough for everybody,” Sheley said. “I was shocked that they were going to start construction of a parking lot in the middle of a semester basically … that planning of it sounded crazy to me. We need more parking, more parking for students, more parking for faculty.”
After construction, the South Campus Turnaround will be reconfigured to include a specific drop-off area for students and faculty. According to Uhlenkamp, the turnaround currently poses a safety and traffic issue because drivers are continuously slowing down to drop off passengers.
There are no current plans to expand or reconfigure student parking lots, according to Uhlenkamp.