By Amanda Alfanos, Editor-in-Chief

Hanna Daly doesn’t complete a daily campuswide search for a parking spot. The finance/economics freshman parks in the Oklahoma United Methodist Hall parking garage, where she searches her assigned floor for a spot. Though her search is easy, she said finding a parking spot is a challenge for most students. A proposed parking lot might change some students’ daily search. Administrators could approve the proposal this fall.

The proposed lot would be at 24th Street and Kentucky Avenue, and contain 141 parking spots, said Brian Holland, chief financial officer.

Provided by Brian Holland, chief financial officer

Paving dates for the lot have not been set and will be determined based on the schedule of the potential contractor, Oklahoma City-based Connelly Paving Company,  Holland said. “We really would let them pick what time was the best for them based on trying to get a good price,” he said.

Once construction begins on the lot, it should take less than a month to complete, Holland said. “It’s pretty exciting, for law students especially,” he said. “Business students probably don’t care as much about this project, as somebody who parks over here all the time.” Pricing for the parking lot would be about $200,000, Holland said.

Additional fees for solar lighting on the lot could range from $60 to 70,000, Holland said. “The lights are tough because the power to this area is not very good,” he said. To install lights the way administrators want them, the surrounding lighting grid would need to be replaced, Holland said.

Administrators have talked about the proposed parking lot for three to four years, said Dr. Rick Hall, vice president for student affairs. And with the location of the proposed parking lot being newly available for construction, officials could be a step closer to easing parking demands. The property was formerly the site of a water retention pond, Hall said.

“We had to wait on the city to finish construction on an underground pipe to manage the city’s flow of water,” he said. Hall said he hopes the parking helps relieve congestion along Nobel Drive. The law spaces represent one third of all 630 law students, he said.

This article originally appeared on Page 1 of the September 22nd, 2010 issue of The Campus.

A related editorial can be found here.

Editors Note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified the street the parking lot would be located at.