The Loyola Physical Plant announced that the construction of the West Road Garage has been completed and is now open for general parking.
The two new floors provide an additional 236 parking spaces to the initial 1,400 found on campus.
As part of phase one of Loyola’s $35 million construction master plan, the revamping of the West Road Garage is expected to provide adequate parking for the increased number of students, faculty and staff.
“The project was under the $6 million budget,” said Robert Reed, assistant vice president for Student Affairs and director of the University Parking Committee.
Reed said parking permits are expected to remain at the current price of $210 per semester for residents and $180 per semester for commuters.
According to Roger Pinac, captain of Loyola University Police, parking regulations will not change either. The West Road Garage is reserved only for commuter students and faculty and staff with permits.
A few Loyola professors have requested that they receive priority parking on grounds that it is much worse for a professor to arrive late to class than a student. This permission, however, has been denied, said Pinac.
“It’s not cost-effective to have a lot of empty space laying around,” Pinac said. “It’s fair across the board, first come, first serve.”
Nevertheless, Pinac said that the new parking spaces should alleviate a lot of the traffic and stress that forms due to space limitations.
Compared to Loyola, Tulane has three times as many people and the same amount of available parking space as Loyola. In addition, Pinac said that while regulations allow for only 2.5 permits per parking space, Loyola has never exceeded 1.8.
“It’s not so much the number of spaces, but scheduling,” Pinac said. “If a student gets to campus before 9 a.m., they will get a space.”
Yet, in order to deal with space constraints, restrictions on lowerclassmen have been implemented. As of now, 200 freshmen and sophomores residents can solicit a parking permit.
“We haven’t hit that, yet,” Pinac said.
However, Clare Donovan, psychology sophomore, commutes daily to Loyola and says she had a difficult experience involving parking on campus.
“I ended up parking on the street,” Donovan said. “Around the 11 a.m. period was most difficult, but before 7:30 a.m. there are usually spots.”
With the opening of the West Road Garage, drivers who face the same issues as Donovan should find parking much easier.
Natalia Verdina can be reached at
