Proposed parking garage on hold

For the campus and the community, it's a matter of balance.\nResidents of campus-adjacent Elm Heights neighborhood were appeased by IU President Adam Herbert's decision yesterday to delay the IU board of trustees' vote on a four-and-a-half-level parking garage, proposed for the southwest corner of campus.\n"We want to facilitate a conversation between the administration and the neighborhood over concerns they have voiced about the proposal," Herbert said in a press release.\nThe trustees were scheduled to vote on the building in a business meeting Friday.\nElm Heights Association President Jenny Southern said she first heard about the proposed 600-spot garage a little more than a week ago. \n"I was kind of alarmed that something had popped up and no one had seen the plan for it," she said. "That got people very nervous. It will be good to get some factual information to clear the air."\nIn the summer of 2003, then-IU-Bloomington Chancellor Sharon Brehm created a committee to look at ways to improve parking on campus. The committee created five recommendations for the campus, one of which was to build a new garage on the south and west area of campus.\n"The previous four recommendations will provide some relief to this portion of campus, but the committee believes that even with these steps problems will remain in this area," the committee's final report says. "Therefore, the committee endorses the proposed construction of a parking garage near this part of campus."\nIU Architect Bob Meadows said he looked at seven or eight different schemes before deciding the corner of Fess Street and Atwater Avenue was the best fit for the garage.\n"It was the only place along there a garage would fit comfortably," Meadows said, specifically citing the garage width.\nSouthern said she wasn't surprised when she first heard about the proposal since she had been watching the University buy up property between Atwater Avenue and Third Street for some time.\n"I was concerned the whole area would become a bathtub ring of parking garages," she said.\nThe garage also worries the neighborhood residents because of an increase in traffic in their neighborhood, where Southern said many of the residents walk everywhere.\n"Of course, living close to campus is conditional with having traffic," said Elm Heights resident and IU law professor Robert Fischman, who walks to work daily. "But we're concerned with the balance."\nThirty-seven-year Elm Heights resident Suzann Owen said she is not only worried about the additional traffic concerns, including what she considers a faulty exit plan for the garage on narrow Fess Street, but the aesthetics of the garage as well.\n"It would be a very ugly entrance to campus from that direction," she said. "The first thing people will see is a very ugly building and that's inconsistent with the rest of the University."\nMeadows said the garage plans have taken the campus' aesthetics into consideration. The garage will be tucked away between existing trees and the building will be made of as much limestone as it can, allowing only for ventilation.\n"It will have a much more residential feel," Meadows said.\nFischman, Southern and Owen all said they are pleased the University is taking the time to communicate with the neighborhood about the garage through meetings, currently unscheduled, which will be overseen by Terry Clapacs, vice president and chief administrative officer.\n"I've worked on a lot of faculty-appointment searches," Fischman said, "and part of the attraction of IU is the lifestyle. One aspect of that is Elm Heights, and that's important for the University to maintain"