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Nearly 400 parking spots to be added before football facility construction

Ground was broken on the Anderson Family Football Complex earlier this month, which will include two full-size practice fields where a large parking lot is now located. But nearly 400 new parking spaces will be constructed before any of the current ones are removed.

Expanded parking

See the previous Oread article for a graphic of where the new Anderson Family Football Complex and practice fields will be located.

Warren Corman, university architect, said there will be approximately 380 new spaces in terraced lots between the stadum and Joseph R. Pearson Hall and in an area north of the abandoned tennis courts, southeast of the stadium. The new lots will be built on terraces into the hill between the stadium and Joseph R. Pearson Hall. Construction on these lots is set to begin later this month or in early November and should be completed by spring, Corman said. The new lots will have an exit to 11th Street.

The parking lot work should take about $1.5 million of the $31 million budget for the total project, Corman said.

Once the new lots are constructed, spots will be removed from lot 91, to make room for the practice fields. About 250 spaces, or the north third of the lot will be removed. A smaller number of spaces will be removed from lots 92 and 93, but lot 94, located directly east of the stadium, will not be affected, Corman said. Construction of the fields is set to begin next spring, following completion of the new lot east of the stadium.

Once the practice fields are completed, construction will begin on the Anderson Family Football Complex. That work is set to begin this winter, and should be completed before the beginning of the 2008 football season.

Corman said any disruptions in parking should be minimal, and pointed out that during the last academic year, lot 94 was frequently full. But this year, with the opening of the 1,500 space Park and Ride lot on west campus, lot 94 is no longer overflowing with vehicles.

TOPONYMS

Alumna Carrie M. Watson (1858-1943) was KU's head librarian from 1887 to1921 and oversaw the first expansion from a single room in Old Fraser to the new Spooner Hall in 1894. After retirement, she went often to the new library, named in her honor in 1924, to work on local history projects.