The parking situation at Longwood University changes each semester, and spring 2014 is no exception.
According to the Town of Farmville Town Manager Gerry Spates, Longwood University is interested in purchasing Ray Street, which runs from Redford Street to Wynne Drive. However, selling the street does not seem to be in the town’s best interest.
“The town is a little reluctant to sell the streets,” said Spates. “I think what we’re going to do is lease the streets. That way Longwood can control it, we’ll maintain it and then we’ll work out a deal on sharing the revenues.”
Longwood has never bought streets from the Town of Farmville, according to Longwood’s Vice President for Administration and Finance Ken Copeland. “The town had to agree to allow us to use the streets, but we never actually bought a street,” he said.
“The last time we had anything to do with a street transfer was when Pine Street was closed,” said Copeland. “When I got here, Brock
Commons did not exist, so when Brock Commons was built we had had to have the street basically condemned.”
Longwood has added several parking lots over the years, including the new Lancer Park lots for select freshmen as well as the new Walk2Campus Apartments for upperclassmen.
According to Spates, Longwood owns about four times as much land as they did 20 years ago. Even with these huge changes over the years, resident and commuter parking spots are still limited.
Longwood and the Town of Farmville are considering all of the possibilities that go along with providing better and safer parking for students at Longwood. With this taken into consideration, finances for such a big project are hard to find.
Longwood has considered different parking options, but money is an ongoing issue.
“It would be great to have a parking deck, but I don’t know how we would afford it,” said Copeland. He said the university could build a surface parking lot for approximately $1,300 per parking space, while a structured parking lot costs about $8,000 to $12,000 per space.
If the university were to make such a large investment, they would also have to consider how they would break even, whether that’s charging students more to park or through other ways of funding.
Longwood has many goals set in place so that all students can have better, less stressful parking experiences, but there are many obstacles involving such a big change.
The university is making investments in other projects, such as the French Hall remodeling, Stubbs Hall renovations and the upcoming Student Center. All of these interfere financially when it comes to furthering their parking expansion.
Copeland added that when the new Student Center is built, it will take up the majority of Jarman Lot, so parking will have to be addressed sooner than later, or faculty will not have as much room to park.
Copeland also remarked on how student parking fluctuates each year; some years there are more commuters, while other years there are more residents. He said this makes it difficult to properly prepare for parking situations, as each year brings a new challenge.
The university has goals to change parking on campus as a whole.
“The hope is ultimately that we might have a more pedestrian- friendly campus, and we can push parking to the periphery, even if it’s 10 to 15 years down the road,” said Copeland.
