Written by Michelle Cascio
If you are driving around Harding ten minutes before curfew trying to find a place to park, you might as well park far away and start the long hike back to your dorm—you won’t find a spot.
Lack of parking spots is a concern of students at Harding. To try to alleviate this concern, Harding’s department of parking services added 18 new spots on campus. You might have seen them, way over by the cafeteria, not at all close to the dorms.
So the problem isn’t lack of parking spots per se, but lack of convenience. Harding Deputy forParking Services and Transportation, Wayne Westerholm, said the faculty recognizes the problem, but he doesn’t think there is a simple answer.
“It’s a lot more complex under the surface,” he said. “Where do you expand?”
Students have raised concerns about the extra parking going near the cafeteria instead of the dorms. They are really just looking for more convenient parking. Harding junior Katie Culp said she spends about ten minutes looking for a spot and then ten minutes walking back to her dorm.
Westerholm said there is a record number of cars on campus this semester. Sophomore Ashley Purvis also noticed the overflow of cars.
“There are so many cars,” she said. “The problem is on its way to being solved, but there still aren’t enough spots for everybody.”
It might seem this way to students, but Westerholm divulged there is actually plenty of parking, though they may not all be like the curbside “to-go” parking that people are so accustomed to these days.
Luckily, more spots will open up in the spring. Westerholm said that there are fewer issues in the spring regarding parking since there is usually a lower enrollment.
With over 4,000 students on campus, it might seem like there will not be enough parking spots on Harding’s small campus. However, there are about 5,000 parking spots total, with only 13 percent of them reserved for staff.
There are only nine visitor’s spots on campus now that they added the 18 parking spots by the cafeteria, after the spots around the Ezell building, Harding Academy, the Harding Press and the Health Services are taken account for. The recent converted parking lot was overflow parking for guests that couldn’t find parking in spots by the Heritage.
Westerholm said that there isn’t enough space for teachers and staff to park; they have to share spaces like students do. There are approximately 1,200 faculty members, yet only about 700 spots for them.
Compared some other universities, Harding has plenty of parking, Westerholm said. He compares the parking permit of other schools to a hunting license.
“When you buy a permit [at another school], it doesn’t guarantee you a space. It’s only a permit to look,” he said. “Here, we can at least guarantee a space for everyone.”
There may be guaranteed parkingsomewhereon campus, but that still doesn’t solve the issue of the long hike to the dorms. Students in Nate Copeland’s business communication class have submitted two different parking-garage proposals for consideration.
Based solely off student estimates configured from prices fromCone Constructionin Little Rock, the parking garage will cost six million dollars with steel framing, and three million without it.
That means each parking spot would cost ten to fifteen thousand dollars to pay off the garage. That is certainly not going to be paid off with an increase in parking permits. So where would the money come from?
With today’s economy still in shambles, it doesn’t seem likely any alumni or important figure is going to donate that kind of money to Harding to build a parking garage. Who would rather have their name on a steel parking garage than a beautifully crafted graduate building?
It looks like the immediate issue of parking troubles won’t be fixed unless a magical stork drops off a bag of six million dollars on Harding President David Burks’s front step. So for now, tie your sneakers a little tighter, and prepare for the inevitable long walk to the dorm.
