By Keith Allen
Arizona Daily Wildcat
The Park Avenue garage had 189 reserved parking spaces turned into visitor parking spaces yesterday, and the metered system was replaced with an attendant-based system.
Marlis Davis, director of Parking and Transportation Services, said the expansion has been planned for the past year, and has been an issue the last three or four years.
"There is a great need for visitor parking," Davis said.
The lack of funding available to expand the parking and problems getting the "manpower" for the attendant delayed the expansion, Davis said.
There are now 289 spaces available for visitors, Davis said.
The garage's visitor parking will be operated like the Second Street garage, with an attendant on duty weekdays between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m., Davis said. The rate for parking is $1 per hour, she said. The attendant system replaces the metered parking that was in the garage for visitors, she said.
The need for more visitor spaces also came about through requests by the College of Business and Public Administration, the College of Law and the College of Fine Arts, which wanted to have more parking available for activities, Davis said.
Also like the Second Street garage, Davis said spaces can be reserved for conferences or activities that are held on campus by various departments.
"The building was designed for expansion in the visitor area," Davis said.
She said that when the garage was built in 1987, there wasn't the need for visitor parking because McClelland Hall and the Fine Art Complex were not built at the time.
The Park Avenue garage has a total of 1,400 spaces, and Davis said the garage always has had space available on the roof. She said the additional visitor parking was planned when permits were sold for the 1995-96 school year.
Davis said the 1,503 active permit holders for the garage should not be "significantly harmed."