FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — There are 850 parking spaces available on the Fayetteville High School campus: 300 for faculty and 550 for students. Parking is an everyday hassle for those at FHS, and the district is looking to change that.
Fayetteville Superintendent Dr. John Mulford said adding a parking garage is the only way to go.
"We need more [parking], and, on our property, we don't have anywhere to add additional parking lots," Mulford said.
The district is in the design stages for a parking deck that would alleviate the parking woes at FHS.
"We're estimating somewhere around $17 million," Mulford said. "It would take about ... two years to build, and that would provide us with about 460 additional parking spaces."
As a parking alternative, parents report many students are paying as much as $1,300 per year to park off campus at nearby businesses or people's houses.
"There are limited spots on campus where you can add that, and there are some locations that work better than others," Mulford said. "The current location that we're exploring is the one that provides the highest level of safety for students, for pedestrians, and then overall, would be the most cost-effective approach."
There are three proposed locations for the garage. In Mulford's opinion, the best one is on the west side of Fayetteville High School.
"This is the optimal location and probably one of the biggest factors is it puts all the people that would park in that garage, 460, would not have to cross any streets to enter the building," Mulford said. "There's a lot of pedestrian safety there. Also, because of the slope of the space, the portion where students would park would have direct access from Bulldog Boulevard, meaning the students would never have to navigate a parking garage."
What may throw a wrench in the district's plans, however, are the trees on the property where they're looking to build the deck.
The deck's potential future home has a tree preservation easement, and some residents are concerned that in order for the garage to go there, all the trees would have to be removed.
"It's about six-tenths of an acre and has seven large oak trees on it that have been there for quite some time. The location we're looking at building would require most of those trees to be removed," Mulford said. "We're currently talking to the city about replacing that tree preservation easement with an alternate tree preservation easement, and we've been working with them over the last few weeks."
Ward 2 Councilmember Sarah Moore said the issue is a challenge for everyone involved.
"You do see houses selling parking, and so, yes, there are different avenues through the city that homeowners work to be able to allow students to park. I think recognizing that it is a challenge to think about how many students are currently on campus that might be bringing cars," Moore said.
Before any construction or removal of trees, the city council will hear about the proposal on Sept. 10 at an agenda session before voting at their next meeting on Sept. 17.
"We will only hear from city staff, and so they did have an additional sit down with Dr. Mulford's team with the district, and they had some additional discussion, and I think that the city staff listing some additional information that's going to be provided to them here shortly," Moore said.
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