Monday October 15, 2001

Temporary move to make room for additional housing, new health center

The university's motor pool and garage, which store and service UA vehicles, will be transferred to two temporary locations to make room for the construction of student housing and a new health center, UA officials said.

Al Tarcola, director of facilities management, said the move has been in the works for a couple of years and was intended to accommodate more students.

"We are vacating our current location to make room for construction," he said. "We're working on moving to new permanent quarters within the next six months."

Pete Dourlein, associate director of Facilities Design and Construction, said the current site of the motor pool, located on North Highland Avenue and East Fifth Street, is where the construction project, also known as the Highland District Project, will be built.

Dourlein said the motor pool and maintenance garage are sitting on necessary construction space and, therefore, must be relocated in order to build the needed facilities.

"There are not a lot of building sites on campus, and sometimes those spaces are occupied and we have to find another place for those entities," he said.

Colleen Morgan, facilities project manager for Facilities Management, said the department has until Oct. 22 to fully relocate and has identified two temporary locations to store its vehicles.

The motor pool houses all the university's vehicles, including vans that are rented out to departments and student organizations.

She said the main storage site will be at a surface lot west of Tyndall Avenue Garage, 880 E. Fourth St. She said PTS will assist the department in the move and allotted it 65 parking spaces for the temporary facility.

The remainder of vehicles will be stored in a lot, on West Sixth Street, east of the Tucson Electric Power building, 220 W. Sixth St.

No vehicles have yet been moved.

Tarcola said the relocation and construction projects have not been affected by the recent statewide budget crisis.

"We planned for this for quite some time. Funds were allocated prior to the budget crisis," he said.

He said all aspects of the Highland District Project are going according to plan.

The construction consists of three major projects.

The first project is the construction a residence hall that will house 750 students. The hall will be built in two phases and cost just under $40 million. The first phase should be completed in fall 2003, at which point students will be moved into the hall.

The second project will be the construction of Highland Commons, a replacement facility for the current Campus Health Service and Disability Resource Center. The center will cost $19 million and is scheduled to be complete by fall 2003.

The third part of the project is a parking garage and office building for Parking and Transportation Services.