City of Hope employees who park in lot E recently arrived to find more than 40 new spaces in the lot — a sign of campus planners’ progress in their campaign to expand parking.
“Since the opening of Helford Clinical Research Hospital at City of Hope, there have been dramatic shifts in parking patterns on campus,” said John Oden, senior vice president of Facilities. To accommodate growth, the Project Administration, Engineering and Security groups are adding nearly 400 parking spaces on the Duarte campus.
Besides the additional spaces in lot E, 19 new spaces were added in lot C. Over the next few months, construction will continue in lots B and C and will begin next to the Center for Biomedicine and Genetics and Population Sciences buildings, as well as at the horticulture area near lot C. Planners expect that the additional available spaces will minimize any inconvenience caused by upcoming construction, but the relocation of light poles will require temporary restrictions, Oden said.
To meet federal guidelines for environmental protection, the City of Duarte mandates that parking additions include run-off catch basins, he added. Construction depends on the permitting process, and that may influence the final parking count. “As we work toward improving campus parking, we anticipate there will be some inconvenience,” Oden said. “Please bear with us.”
Employees who park on the gravel near lot D on the south end of campus will lose the space with the advent of the Population Sciences building project. However, Oden noted that all of the new, incremental spaces (except those at Population Sciences) are closer to the center of campus than the eliminated spaces.
Security employees eased parking enforcement last winter, when parking was especially congested, but the patrols now will resume enforcement, he said.
Compact spaces have been eliminated, he noted, due to problems with large vehicles parking in small spaces. In addition, planners reduced carpool spaces so they could add disabled permit parking. However, they will identify and allocate carpool spaces as soon as possible.
Planners aim to finish improvements by Nov. 1. Future projects include two parking structures: one for the patient/visitor lot, and another on the west side of campus. In addition, negotiations with the Army Corps of Engineers for an additional 250 surface parking spaces to the east have reached the environmental review stage. At least five governmental jurisdictions must approve City of Hope’s proposal before construction can begin.
