Additional parking to be available outside Heide Hall

With the $20 million University Center construction nearing completion, additional metered parking will be provided on the east side of the new building.

Bob Barry, Director of the Student Union in the UC, said there will be 44 four-hour parking stalls, seven 30-minute stalls and four handicapped stalls.

"There was always a parking lot there, and we thought that as long as we were replacing it, we should expand it as well," Barry said. "We're replacing and enhancing the parking lot."

The UC is home to different student organizations, including Whitewater Student Government and the Royal Purple.

"This lot is set up so that students will be able to park in there after 7 p.m. and not have to pay the meter," Bob Brecklin, supervisor of Visitor and Parking Services, said. "That's to facilitate the students who are working in the WSG office or things like that."

According to the Visitor and Parking Services page on the UW-Whitewater Web site, there are around 5,000 parking spots on campus.

Brecklin said he expects the parking lot to be opened around the opening of the UC, which is sometime in January.

"The lack of parking that we used to have didn't make sense at all," Brecklin said. "There's not a lack of parking, there's a perceived lack of convenient parking. Everybody wants to be right outside the door."

Brecklin said there are about 10,600 students, 1,200 faculty and staff, and hundreds of visitors on campus each day.

"So that's a population larger than a lot of Wisconsin towns and villages. It's going to be really crowded," Brecklin said. "Everyday is like Christmas Eve at the mall."

There will be landscaping in and around the new parking lot.

"In the strip where the meters are, there will be some trees and bushes," Barry said. "On the edges of the lot there will be some landscaping as well."

Barry said the new parking lot will be more convenient for students and visitors on campus.

"It will be more convenient for students going to meetings in the UC and for commuter students who only have one or two classes," Barry said.

Patrick Broderick, president of the Campus Greens, said building a parking lot on campus is better than breaking new ground and expanding the campus.

Some of Broderick's concerns about the new parking lot include the run-off and the interference of a geological monument.

Broderick said he understands most of Whitewater was formed by glaciers.

"I'm kind of concerned as to whether we are ruining a natural, historic monument by doing whatever we want," he said.