Parking access improves at FAC

by Daniel J. Fitzgibbons, Chronicle staff

Workers from Warner Brothers in Sunderland (above) prepare the area that once was a Fine Arts Center reflecting pool to be a handicapped-accessible parking lot (below). (Stan Sherer photos)

he conversion of one of the Fine Arts Center's reflecting pools into a parking lot is part of a broader effort to make the facility more accessible to the handicapped.

     Earlier this semester, the pool was removed and replaced with a 32-space parking area.

     Construction of the lot followed last year's installation of an accessible elevator in the FAC. Under state building code and federal guidelines, the campus also had to provide adjacent parking for patrons using the accessible entrance to the concert hall.

     However, the new lot is "only a temporary solution," according to Bruce Thomas, campus landscape architect at Facilities Planning.

     Since a steamline project is scheduled to head through the area next year, about $75,000 of the funding for the work was used to remove the leaky reflecting pool and build the parking lot, said Thomas.

     Early next year, work will begin on a steamline project from Herter Hall across the FAC plaza to a site near the Morrill Science Center greenhouses. Another line will tie in from the Isenberg School of Management.

     As that work progresses, said Thomas, part of the new parking lot will be dug up. Afterward, a more attractive, permanent lot with the same number of spaces will be available.

     "A lot of pavement will be removed and planted," said Thomas. "This work got rid of the pool and put fill in -work that would need to done later."

     During the steamline construction, said Thomas, use of the lot may be curtailed at times, but the plan is to keep it open "as much as can be accommodated."

     According to Thomas, the steamline project could start in January or February and should be completed by next September.

     Meanwhile, other plans call for landscaping the remaining reflecting pool nearest Herter Hall. Both pools were headaches for years, since they leaked into the Fine Arts Center. When the pools were drained, they often attracted skateboards and filled up with unsightly trash and leaves.