Kent State’s main campus will receive a new parking lot this summer, which will add 140 spaces across the street from the Student Recreation and Wellness Center, answering many complaints from both students and faculty.

“There’s an existing C Science lot that’s over there, and this will be an expansion to that,” said Michael Bruder, executive director of facilities planning and design. The new lot will be between the Liquid Crystals Materials Science Building and Stewart Hall.

“If you were to head out that way now, you would see the space all torn up,” Bruder said. “It was just some lawn space between the upper C Science lot and the lower one.”

Students voice their complaints about parking on campus frequently.

Recent Kent State graduate Troy Spehar once had to take an online quiz on his phone while sitting in his car because he wasn’t able to find a parking spot before class.

“I had class at 9:15 in Nixon Hall and arrived with plenty of time to park and walk to class, but there were no spots in the music and speech parking lot. So I went to the White Hall lot, still no luck,” Spehar said. 

Spehar said he already had two parking tickets because of this same situation, so he proceeded to pull into a metered space and took the quiz he was about to miss on his phone.

“I ended up having to park by the ice arena and walk all the way to Nixon,” he said.

Richie Fuller, a senior marketing major, said he found it easier to park at restaurants across the street from campus than to try to find a free space.

“I would leave a half hour early to try to find a spot sometimes and still not be able to,” Fuller said.

 The new C lot on Summit Street is a part of the Summit Street Improvement Project. With the current renovations to Summit Street, the university modified parking lots on both sides of the street to reflect the proposed design.

Last summer, the university added the new Student Center lot, and two years ago they worked on the Bowman-Satterfield lot, which were both portions of this larger project as well.

The Summit Street Parking project will cost about $4.5 million by the time it is complete, Bruder said. The C lot is expected to be finished by the fall semester.

Caitlin Albright is the construction reporter. Contact her at [email protected].