Work has begun on Montana State University’s new parking structure. The parking structure is the University’s first and is also the first part of a larger plan to develop the southwest corner of 7th Avenue and Grant Street into a South Campus that includes a new, $50 million engineering building.
The project team includes its general contractor Martel Construction of Bozeman and Montana-based A&E Architects. The parking structure will be just one portion of the university’s South Campus development. The development’s keystone is the Norm Asbjornson Innovation Center (NAIC), which is being made possible by a $50 million gift from 1960 MSU College of Engineering alumnus Norm Asbjornson, president and CEO of AAON, a NASDAQ-traded heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) manufacturer based in Tulsa, Okla., The company has annual revenues in excess of $300 million and more than 1,400 employees. Construction on the NAIC is scheduled to begin in 2016. Construction on the parking structure and the NAIC are being staggered so as to have the least impact on parking over the entire South Campus development construction process.
Starting construction now on the new parking structure will allow it to be open for parking in January 2017, only a few months after the NAIC construction begins. This will minimize the time period where a majority of parking close to the SUB will be unavailable. The new parking structure will have 550 parking spaces, which will be a net gain of 150 spaces over those removed due to the construction of the NAIC and the parking structure itself. The parking structure allows MSU to provide high-density parking near some of the most heavily used buildings on campus–the SUB, MSU Library and the Marga Hosaeus Fitness Center–without having to use up more land for surface lots. Debt on the parking structure will be repaid by revenues generated from a combination of pay parking and permits for parking in the structure. No state or tuition dollars will be used. •