The south end of the East Parking Lot sees renovations over the summer, but this is only one part of a bigger project for the Highline campus.
Over the summer the south end of the East Parking Lot entrance was under construction making more spaces available for staff and students to park on the East Parking Lot of campus. This is a project Sound Transit pitched in on.
Though Sound Transit originally wanted a station on campus, students will have to settle for it being across the street from Highline. According to Barry Holldorf, Director of Facilities Department, the problem with the initial plan was that, “[the train] would have to go underground and that was not directly in the interest of Sound Transit.”
The East Parking Lot is a bigger project where a roundabout would be added to the northeastern side of campus, towards Campus View Student Housing, upgrading it as the new main entrance for campus. It is being built in the hopes of having a more controlled entrance.
“Both ends were supposed to be constructed at the same time but because of the lead times and design times needed, Sound Transit approached us with a phased approach. This approach was to do the south end of the East Parking Lot this year and then the north part of the East Parking Lot next summer,” Holldorf stated.
Unfortunately, the project won’t be completely finished until fall of 2023. By phasing this in two-parts it actually works better for the college because with this approach students, faculty, and staff always have access into the East Parking Lot.
“If both ends were done like originally proposed we would have completely lost the use of the East Parking Lot during construction,” Holldorf said.
Despite working with the city of Des Moines, the parking lot was paid for by the community.
“The state does not fund this project, this was locally funded, and it was under one million dollars to get both ends,” Holldorf said.
The roundabout that will be built in the northeastern side of campus coming in on Campus View is not part of Highline; the facility directors sold that part of campus to the city.
“We gave away some of that college land to the city so they can come in and put a large roundabout into the middle of the lot from College Way in the northeast corner, and it’ll become a three lane road with a stop light. That will become the new entrance to the college,” Holldorf said.
Holldorf mentioned that the roundabout will be maintained by the city, but due to the area where it is being built, campus lost about 57 parking spaces on the northeast side but gained 76 more on the southeastern side of campus.
Holldorf is confident that this project will bring more student interest to come on campus and study here, and that it will be seen from the train station.
This project ran as smoothly as possible, according to Holldorf, “It was pretty direct in MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) the city of Des Moines who represent us in the Sound Transit project, it was actually done very well, regarding the design. The only difficulty we had was coming out of COVID there was this long wait time for a lot of specific equipment out there, either putting it down on the ground or in buildings.”
An MOU is a nonbinding agreement between two parties and it instates the parties intentions when forming a partnership, making a business transaction, or taking an action into something in this case it was constructing a new parking lot and roundabout.
The first part of the project was done within 90 days starting in June and ending in the third week of September. The second part of the project will start in June of 2023 and wrap up in September, before fall quarter begins.
While the roundabout is being built it will have an effect on those that live in Campus View due to construction, but this parking lot will benefit students, faculty, and staff in finding more available spaces.
“It provides more parking when it’s all done, it will realign the campus to a new entrance, making it easier to get people in and out of campus, and it has more visibility to the campus,” said Holldorf.
