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Major changes in parking and pedestrian routes on campus begin this week when the site of the new education and research building is fenced for enabling work by the construction management company.
Building the nine-story, 350,000-square-foot facility requires restricting access to the campus green and demolishing a portion of the First Road garage. All of the area shown in yellow on the accompanying graphic will be enclosed and inaccessible to the general public for the duration of the project. Construction vehicles will enter the site through a gate on First Road in front of the Lazare Research Building.
On Monday, Nov. 16, unreserved parking will end in the First Road garage. This restriction includes unreserved parkers from the Plantation Street garage who have “off shift” parking privileges. All unreserved parking permit holders formerly using the First Road garage must park in the Pine Tree lot, the Plantation Street garage or other unreserved campus lots.
Reserved parking will continue in the garage; however, people assigned to reserved floors will move up one floor to park. Second floor parkers will move to the third floor, third floor parkers to the fourth floor and so on. Those assigned to the first floor will relocate to the third floor, as the entire second floor will be restricted during the early phase of construction. New signage will direct parkers to the appropriate floor.
Pedestrian routes will change significantly during construction, so people are urged to pay special attention to signage and stay within designated walkways. The campus green and sidewalk in front of the First Road garage will be closed. The first floor of the garage will be closed permanently. The pedestrian bridges connecting the LRB and the Sherman Center to the First Road garage will remain open until in early January, then will be closed and demolished. Pedestrian access to the elevator and stair tower of the garage will be maintained from the walkway between the garage and the Sherman Center.
The electric vehicle charging stations on the first floor will be out of service as of Nov. 16 and eventually will be relocated elsewhere in the garage. During this period of construction, all electric vehicle drivers are urged to charge their vehicles at home and use charging stations at the Plantation Street garage only when necessary.
The Parking and Access Control office will relocate on Nov. 16, moving from the First Road garage to the Michelson Conference Room on the first floor of the LRB. It will maintain its current hours of 8 a.m. to noon.
For additional information on the project and periodic construction updates, please visit https://umassmed.edu/NERB/
