The Notre Dame administration is considering constructing a parking garage on the south side of campus, most likely at the current location of Legends of Notre Dame, Executive Vice President John Affleck-Graves said in an email to the University community Thursday morning.
Along with the email, Affleck-Graves attached a survey intended to collect feedback from Notre Dame students, faculty and staff about the necessity of a parking garage for the campus community.
“The next step in implementing the Parking Committee’s recommendations is to explore the feasibility of a parking garage,and share the findings with the University community,” he said in the email. “Over the next several months, the University will conduct a study of how campus would use a parking garage and what the associated costs would be for those who use it.”
Affleck-Graves said the potential site of the parking garage would be in response to an expressed interest in “covered parking as close to the center of campus as possible” and recent expansions to campus.
“With the opening of several new facilities on the south side of campus, the area in greatest demand for parking is the south side of campus,” the email said. “If a parking garage were to be constructed, we believe it would be built on the site where Legends restaurant is currently located.”
Due to the high cost of building a parking garage, Affleck-Graves said in the email that the University would develop rates for its use, which would be “inversely correlated with the expected number of people who would use the garage.”
“Since parking garages are much more expensive to build and maintain than surface parking, those who use the parking garage would cover the associated costs,” he said. “The University would seek to break even. We expect that there would be rates for hourly, daily and special event parking for faculty, staff, students and visitors. In addition, annual reserved parking passes would likely be available to faculty, staff and students.”
Affleck-Graves said in the email that he would release the results of the study later in the semester.
