Burtenshaw, Tucker: no residence hall parking
There has been frustration over the past week at the residence halls of Tucker and Burtenshaw on the USU-CEU campus due to the construction on the parking lot at the halls.
Students living in Tucker or Burtenshaw are now required to park in either the Computer Business Building parking lot or at the Aaron Jones dorms. There are also spaces along the street available, but decent parking is becoming competitive.
This archived article was written by: Tadd Mecham
There has been frustration over the past week at the residence halls of Tucker and Burtenshaw on the USU-CEU campus due to the construction on the parking lot at the halls.
Students living in Tucker or Burtenshaw are now required to park in either the Computer Business Building parking lot or at the Aaron Jones dorms. There are also spaces along the street available, but decent parking is becoming competitive.
Bailie Packer, a student at USU-CEU, said, “It’s out of the way of most of my classes when I have to park at the CBB, because of the lack of parking on the road. And because I go to Green River to work on the weekends, when I come back, I have to make a few trips back and forth between my car and dorm. It’s just kind of a pain.”
Students have been asking what this construction is for and also why it is being done at the beginning of a new semester instead of at a time when there are less students attending classes, like during the summer months.
It turns out the construction taking place is to replace a steamline to the CBB, which was on the verge of failure, said Sheila Burghardt, the USU-CEU facilities manager. This work must be done before winter to keep the CBB up and running. So the work must be done as soon as possible.
The reason the work could not be done at a time which there would have been less students occupying the parking lot, like during the summer, was the school must wait for funding to complete projects. This funding takes some time to get approved. The funding for projects cannot be released until the beginning of the fiscal year, which for all state agencies was July 1st.
And even if the funding could have been achieved in the summer, it is a time in which the Division of Facilities Construction and Management are very busy. The DFCM have project managers, which Burghardt has to work with in order to schedule projects.
Although the projects that needed done were known about in April, there wasn’t much that could be done until the funding was released on the first of July. It’s a complicated process to get funding for construction.
The parking lot could have been started sooner if it had not been for the failure of a cooling unit in the Reeves building. This required the request for emergency funding to get that replaced which, in turn, pushed back the construction date for the Tucker/Burtenshaw parking lot.
Although the construction being done on the parking lot may seem inconvenient right now, everything is being done to make the work as quick as possible.
The parking lot isn’t the only place where the steam line must be replaced. Usually, they would just work on the entire job at one time. Since students need the parking lot, the full focus is on getting this part of the project done first.
The parking lot has been made first priority. It is the only focus at this point as far as the construction on that steam-line goes. It is a place on campus that is used every day by students. This is why it is given first priority, and will be done as soon as possible.
The work on the project is scheduled to be finished on November 1st. Rest assured, everything which can be done to get this project completed as quickly as possible is being done. The students are first priority, Burghadt added.
