By: Marais Jacon-Duffy
Editor-in-Chief

Butler will begin construction on a new student-housing facility and a multi-use parking garage sometime in this coming school year.

Plans for the new residence hall and parking garage were approved by Butler’s Board of Trustees and announced to faculty and staff in an email by University President James Danko yesterday.

The parking garage will be located behind Clowes Memorial Hall on Sunset Avenue, adjacent to Lake Road. The five-story lot will provide parking for faculty, staff and commuting students, as well as some event parking. The lot is currently used for event parking.

Danko’s email said the University “expects to break ground this fall on a planned 1,038-space, five-story parking facility, which is scheduled to open in August 2015.”

The garage will also have some 15,000 square feet which will likely house businesses and restaurants, according to the email.

A plan for a mixed-use parking garage was endorsed by Butler’s Board of Trustees in September 2012, as reported in Collegian coverage from October 2012. At the time, members of the Butler-Tarkington neighborhood association were also advocates of the plan, saying they wanted to get cars off the street.

The new 600-bed residence hall will be located in what is now the Irwin Library parking lot. The spot was chosen “following detailed planning efforts and input from a broad set of campus and community stakeholders,” the email said.
Construction on the residence hall will begin in spring 2015 is expected to end in fall 2016. The email did not specify who will live in the new residence hall.

Butler and American Campus Communities will also assess existing residence halls, specifically Schwitzer Hall, Ross Hall, and Residential College, to determine whether or not the residence halls should be renovated in any way or replaced with a new building.