OU creates 72 new parking spaces to accommodate growing enrollment

Responding to a record enrollment on campus this fall, Oakland University has used creative measures to provide additional parking spaces for its students.

Over the past weekend, Oakland’s facilities management team striped and restriped parking space boundaries in several existing lots, creating a total of 72 additional parking spots at a cost of about $2,000.

“Our goal was to create as many additional parking spaces as possible within existing parking lots,” said Terry Stollsteimer, associate vice president for Facilities Management. “We recognize how tight parking has become as we add new students, and our priority is to accommodate our students’ parking needs as best we can within the current framework.” Stollsteimer said the university hopes to continue to add new parking areas in the future.

Twenty-six additional parking spaces were added to the lot on the corner of Squirrel Road and Walton Blvd (P-3). Twenty-three spaces were created along the connector road between Varner Hall and Pawley Hall. The other 23 additional parking spaces are scattered throughout other existing lots on campus: Nine in P-38, 7 in P-41S, 4 in P-26 and 3 in P-24. Stollsteimer also noted that P-11, the parking lot near the upper playing fields is rarely filled to capacity, and is a similar walk to the center of campus, as is the parking structure or P-3.

Consult the campus map at oakland.edu/map to locate all parking areas.