The Board of Trustees of State Institutions Higher Learning approved the final budget for the construction of a parking garage to be built on the north side of Mississippi State University’s campus on Oct. 18.
According to Tim Muzzi, director of Planning, Design and Construction Administration, the board approved a $12 million budget for the construction of  the garage. This multimillion-dollar project will add 500 parking spaces to MSU’s campus.
According to a press release from MSU Parking and Transit Services Director Jeremiah Dumas, the new garage means parking will be available to students, faculty and visitors, and this will also be used for event parking as well.
The new parking garage will be constructed on the north side of campus near Humphrey Coliseum.
“Right across the street from the Hump is Howell Hall,” Muzzi said. “In between there (Howell Hall) and the new residence halls that were built, there is a sloped hill. We’re digging into the hill, that is where it’s going to be.”
Muzzi said he expects construction will begin near the middle of January or beginning of February.
With record-setting enrollment this year, MSU President Mark Keenum stated he believes one of the many challenges students and faculty face on campus is parking.
“Because of the steady arc of growth in our enrollment, parking has been one of our constant challenges on campus,” Keenum said in a press release. “We’re grateful for the IHL Board’s vision in supporting our efforts to manage that growth in parking demand with an impactful solution that will serve all our stakeholders.”
Like Keenum, Muzzi said he believes this peak in enrollment, which has topped 22,000 thousand students, requires parking to become vertical as opposed to horizontal.
“When you reach the 20,000 student mark, the pedestrian and vehicular traffic switch,” Muzzi said. “Now, we need to start building up vertically instead of horizontally, because we need the space. It’s all about location and density, and keeping a walking radius within classes. As we grow bigger, then we have to start infilling of interior campus. Thus, we’re having to go up with parking lots.”
According to Muzzi, the construction of the parking garage is more expensive than building a surface parking lot; however, the parking garage will not take up as much space as a surface lot.
“Space is becoming valuable, so we have to go up,” Muzzi said.
Although there is an 84-space parking garage under the Mize center and 148-space parking garage under Old Main, this $12 million parking garage is the first major parking garage to be constructed on campus.
“This is the first purely parking garage,” Muzzi said.
Dumas said he believes the construction of this structure will fulfill the demand for parking.
“These spaces will help, and we are adding the number of spaces that data shows we need,” Dumas said. “We also have one of the lowest permit prices in Mississippi and the Southeast, and would like to continue to offer a very reasonably-priced permit relative to our peers.”
Muzzi said the architecture of this garage project will not be that of a typical parking garage.
“We strive to make sure that our parking garages don’t look like a typical parking garage you might see in cities,” Muzzi said. “We want them to fit the architecture and the context of the campus.”
While the architectural characteristics will correlate with the architecture on campus, the garage will also be powered by solar panels.
The project is being led by Tupelo’s McCarty Architects, and it is being assisted by a national planning and design firm, Kimley-Horn.
Along with adding the new parking garage, MSU plans to add a surface parking lot near Fresh Food Company. This lot will add an additional 350 parking spaces.
Both the parking garage and surface lot are expected to be completed in 2019.