Master Plan > Recommendations and Implementation Strategies > Primary Planning Issues
Parking
Recommendations:
- Examine parking lot expansion adjacent to existing lots
- Add buffer strips to existing parking lots and design into all new parking lots
- Build minimum of 10’-0” wide and running the length of the parking bay
- Locate at a minimum of every-other parking bay, or as recommended by parking engineers for specific projects
- Plant with zone hardy trees, shrubs, perennials, and/or seed blends
- Grade parking lots to drain toward buffer strips IF subsurface soils allow them to act as a filtration and drainage mechanism
- Design and plan areas within the buffer strips appropriately to serve as snow storage basins
- Coordinate specific design with a landscape architect or environmental engineer
- Create a new parking lot for the Kress Events Center project
- Create additional parking at the main entrance
- Create additional parking at the edge of the student housing village
- Relocate existing Housing Lot to improve circulation patterns and create a site for housing expansion
- Expand parking near Lab Sciences lot if growth occurs in that area of campus
- Expand parking near Wood Hall lot only if academic core or non-traditional housing develop in that portion of campus
- Reconfigure Weidner Center Lot for more efficient allocation of parking
- Remove separate Weidner Center Valet Lot and use a section of the newly configured lot for valet parking
- Reconfigure and expand Studio Arts parking lot
- Preserve visitor parking adjacent to MAC Hall/University Union
Implementation:
- Realign and expand parking when existing lots need resurfacing/repair
- Include parking lot expansion in budget for specific building projects
- Include parking lot expansion at main entrance as part of entry design project
- Add buffer strips to all existing parking lots when the schedule for resurfacing allows modifications
- Design buffer strips into proposed and future parking lot expansion
The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum
This example demonstrates that pedestrian walkways can accommodate foot traffic at designated locations that transect the buffer strips. Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Erosion Control Association, www.mnerosion.org/meca_lid_mnpls.htm
Buffer Strip Diagram
Buffer strips can be incorporated into all proposed parking lots as well as existing parking lots when resurfaced. These landscape features provide environmental benefits and create more humane looking parking lots.