Parking at the University of Connecticut is taking a hit as construction on Gampel Pavilion’s roof continues.
Some spots in South Garage, located directly across from Gampel, have been closed, and Lot G, located behind Gampel, has been closed entirely, resulting in the loss of 410 parking spots in the middle of campus, according to UConn Facilities Operations Associate Director of Logistics Andy Kelly.
Renovations began at Gampel due to the roof’s lack of insulation, which caused water to condense and drip onto the court. Crews are using spray foam insulation, which isn’t an inhalation hazard, but can impact car paint and things of that nature, Kelly said.
“During spraying operations, the roof of the South Garage and the ramp of the roof to South Garage, which are adjacent to Gampel and open air, have to be closed. Additionally, Lot G… has to be closed,” Kelly said.
Kelly said the spraying operations were supposed to be completed before the start of the fall semester. But due to a number of circumstances including bad weather, that did not happen. Spraying is now supposed to be completed in mid-October. For now, UConn Parking Services is grappling with the loss of hundreds of spots in the middle of campus, something Kelly said is extremely impactful.
“We always say our most important job at Parking Services is to make sure people can park where they pay to park,” Kelly said. “So job one became: make sure the permit holders can still park there.”
Kelly said in recent years, students have favored hourly parking more than permit parking in the garages. Because of this trend, Parking Services offer less permitted spots in North and South Garage compared to what they used to. This also means that there are many more hourly parking spots in South Garage than there are permitted spots, Kelly said. But all of those spots are being limited as Gampel’s construction eliminates a whole level of the garage and all of Lot G.
Parking in South Garage is now limited to only permit holders from 7 a.m. to noon on weekdays. This is an upgrade from the previous limit, which was in effect from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. However, this still displaces students who opt to park hourly. Most students go right to North Garage, Kelly said, which has put Parking Services in a difficult situation.
“There were two brief periods on the first two days of class — one for about an hour on Monday and about 20 minutes on Tuesday — where we ended up turning away permit holders to North Garage from North Garage,” Kelly said. “Huge foul. Just not something that we can do or tolerate doing or had planned on doing. We fixed that quickly.”
Now, Kelly said, Parking Services keeps a close eye on the count of spaces in North Garage.
“When it gets down to 30 spaces left, then we’re limited to permit holders only,” he said. This most often happens from around 10:40 to 11:05 a.m., 11:40 a.m. to 12:05 p.m. and it has gotten close to closing around 12:40 to 1:05 p.m.
Kelly acknowledges that this is not ideal since it can happen so suddenly and without warning, but the other option is to take away hourly parking completely.
“The reality is we could take away the hourly parking in both locations and we would still have enough parking on campus,” he said. “They would be sent to Lot C and K… and most would then ride the bus.”
The university recently underwent changes to its bus routes. Kelly said they specifically worked to make the times between buses at commuter lots shorter. The time between buses to these lots during peak weekday hours is down to six or seven minutes, he said. But Kelly acknowledges that the situation is frustrating.
“It’s difficult because what we’re doing is not stable,” he said. “Because we’re trying to be able to offer the parking literally as much as we possibly can, it creates instability inherently, which is not ideal for anyone. But we weighed the options of offer[ing] some with a significant downside or tak[ing] it away altogether, [and] we’ve opted to go in that direction.”
Outside of Gampel’s construction, Kelly talked about the sudden popularity of Lot W, which he attributes to the opening of The Standard apartment complex last year. Kelly encourages students to use the bus road to get from Lot W to Lot K, which offers commuter parking as well.
Kelly also said the university is hoping to get parking counters in lots across campus. Counters are already present in the garages.
SmartBoots, which were introduced on campus last year, are here to stay. These ticket-enforcers were put on cars owing more than $200 in parking fines. Kelly said Parking Services booted a car earlier this week for the first time in 10 days.
“So that is a very positive sign that that tool has had at least somewhat of an impact in the population that are continually accruing tickets and not paying them,” he said.
Parking enforcement capacity remains at an all-time high. In fact, two more enforcement vehicles are being added to the fleet, Kelly said.
Parking Services is in the process of redoing its parking portal, recognizing a need to modernize the service. Over the summer as students tried to purchase their parking passes, the portal only allowed 300 students in at a time — something Kelly said has never happened before. By next year, Parking Services expects to have a fully updated and supported portal in effect, Kelly said.