Contact: James Carskadon

STARKVILLE, Miss.—A planned $12 million parking garage will add 500 parking spaces to the north side of the Mississippi State University campus.

The new garage will help the university provide parking for students, faculty, staff, and visitors and support event parking, according to MSU Parking and Transit Services Director Jeremiah Dumas. The new structure will be strategically located next to Howell Hall, near Humphrey Coliseum and Davis Wade Stadium. On Thursday [Oct. 18], the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning approved the project.

“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.”

With MSU’s total enrollment now topping 22,000 students, and hundreds of thousands of visitors coming to campus for various events every year, MSU President Mark E. Keenum said the new garage will help meet the growing demand for parking.

“Because of the steady arc of growth in our enrollment, parking has been one of our constant challenges on campus,” Keenum said. “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.”

In addition to the 500 spaces in the parking garage, the university is planning to add approximately 350 parking spaces in a surface parking lot at the north end of the old intramural fields, adjacent to Fresh Food Company. MSU determined the needed amount of parking by utilizing a parking demand and capacity study that was commissioned in 2015. Both construction projects are expected to be completed next year.

“We also overlaid that study with known near and short-term construction projects that could impact spaces,” Dumas said. “It shows that in the year 2019, based on trends and where we are, we would get to the point of really feeling the pinch, parking wise.”

McCarty Architects, based in Tupelo, is the lead design professional for the parking garage. Kimley-Horn, a national planning and design firm, also is assisting with the project. The garage is designed to complement the university’s architectural characteristics and incorporates sustainable storm water solutions. By utilizing solar panels, the structure will generate more electricity than it uses.

As parking capacity increases, Dumas said this is just one way the university is working to ensure students have available transportation. Recently, MSU and the city of Starkville have partnered with the LIME bike share program to provide bikes that students and local residents can rent using a smartphone app. Parking and Transit Services also provides free public transportation through the Starkville-MSU Area Rapid Transit (SMART).

“We really try to look at it from a multimodal perspective,” Dumas said. “LIME bikes are a solution, giving people alternatives from a bicycle standpoint. We continue to invest in pedestrian infrastructure. SMART is a viable way of getting to and from campus, and obviously vehicles too.”

For more on MSU’s Parking and Transit Services, visit www.parkingservices.msstate.edu.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.