by Jeffrey Mu ’24
This week marks the start of the new school year. With plenty of surprises and events in tow for these upcoming weeks, it’s hard to overlook the changes going on around Bellarmine’s campus. For one, the construction work on the parking lot near Emory Street is impossible to miss. So what exactly is going on there and what does the administration plan to do with that space? We talked to Mr. Miller about the changes to the parking lot and the future plans for that area.
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Mr. Miller – Dean of Students
Q. When did the construction start and when is it going to finish?
A. The construction company started in the summer. Currently, they are leveling the ground to pour foundation in to establish a firm base for the building. It’s going to be a four-story parking lot, and we hope it will be finished by the end of this school year, so May or June.
Left: Parking lot construction
Q. What can students and parents expect in the parking structure?
A. We will have charging stations located in the parking structure, that’s the legal requirement now, and handicap stations, as usual. We should have tons of parking in that area next year. It’s a nearly four hundred space increase from the previous lot that will be done next year, so the pains of parking in the front lots can be alleviated.
Q. So the main goal was just to open up space?
A. Yes, because these two front parking lots are going to be redesigned and we are going to lose space on campus, we needed to increase parking availability for people somewhere else.
Q. Why is that space going to be taken up?
A. We are going to build a new academic building, and that area will eventually get redesigned for it. Also, part of the reason of the parking lot was to help with the traffic flow there.
Q. This is after the parking lot is done right?
A. Yeah, of course! We can’t do this at the same time because then nobody will be able to park anywhere, and that would be a big problem.
Right: Construction fencing 
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So there you have it folks! The area around the old parking lot will be dug out in place of a brand new, four-story parking space. With the addition of a new building on the northwest side of campus taking up some parking slots, more availability for student, parent, and faculty parking will be opened up. As a door of opportunity closes, four hundred are opened up on this new parking lot!
