There could be good news for Northwestern students and faculty plagued by on-campus parking problems as NU officials begin planning for a parking garage on the site of the Engelhart Hall parking lot.

Construction of a garage that would cover the surface lot at 1915 Maple Ave. could begin within a year, said Eugene Sunshine, NU’s senior vice president for business and finance. The garage would stand next to Engelhart Hall, a graduate student housing building on the corner of Foster Street and Maple Avenue, he said.

NU has not started designing the garage yet, but is “getting closer to the point where we’re actually going to want to present this to the community,” Sunshine said.

Ald. Arthur Newman (1st), said NU has thought about constructing the garage, which would stand in his ward, for two or three years. NU asked the city to rezone the Engelhart parking lot so the university could build a garage there, he said.

In January 1999, after more than a year of negotiations with city administrators and the Planning and Development Commission, NU settled an agreement with Evanston that rezoned the lot to allow parking garage construction in the residential area.

As part of the agreement, NU gave Evanston some university-owned land on the south side of the NU/Evanston Research Park – where Century Theatres are located – for use in the Church Street Plaza project. In return, the city gave NU the northern part of the Research Park, Sunshine said.

“We wanted to have some of our land more useful for parking garages,” Sunshine said.

NU officials waited until now to plan the additional parking area because construction on other parts of campus decreased the amount of parking available for staff and students, Sunshine said.

“We are using the Engelhart surface lot more and more to take care of our parking needs on campus during this time of all this construction,” he said.

Construction workers and visitors to the Allen Center on North Campus, as well as students living on South Campus with parking permits, currently use the Engelhart lot for their vehicles.

Sunshine said the garage design should be complete within six to nine months. In a formal procedure agreed upon with the city council, NU will present the design to the community and incorporate neighborhood feedback into the project. Construction on the garage will tentatively begin in about a year, Sunshine said.

Evanston gave NU the authority to build the garage no higher than seven or eight stories, said Ald. Steven Bernstein (4th), a member of the city’s Parking Committee. Bernstein said he is concerned about the community that will surround the garage.

“Nobody’s ever happy about parking going up in their area, but as to the lot, it’s a done deal,” Bernstein said. “I just hope (the university is) sensitive to the needs of the community. It’s pretty tough to say no in this town to parking.”

Ald. Joe Kent (5th), whose ward borders Maple Avenue and the Engelhart lot, said a parking garage could affect the area in several ways, including changing the direction of traffic flow, the construction of a cul-de-sac, and an increase in lighting and security.

“I’m sure that Northwestern is going to call on the neighbors to be involved,” Kent said.

Newman said he supports the construction of a garage because it addresses Evanston’s ongoing parking issues, but he is concerned about who will be able to park there.

“The key question about that garage is, who’s going to be able to park in it and for what amount of money?” he said. “It’s useless to the community if the students can’t park in there on a regular basis.”

NU does not plan to build any more garages at this point, Sunshine said. Officials have thought about other alternatives but are not ready to disclose them, he said.