By early summer, what was once a parking lot for the Franklin Building will be an open, grassy public park.
Construction of the approximately 25,000 square-foot park located between Walnut and Sansom streets near 36th Street began in the middle of March and Vice President for Facilities Services and Real Estate Services Omar Blaik said the park should be completed before the summer.
"We are hopeful [it will be finished] early in May," Blaik said. "That might be too aggressive, but we're trying our best."
The new park will include landscaped pathways in front of the Franklin Building, an expansion of the existing seating area on the corner of 36th and Sansom streets and a sloping, grassy area "for performance space for jazz groups and the like," according to Facilities Management staffer Charles Newman.
"And in the summer, we could also show movies out there, and people could sit on the grass," Newman added.
Blaik said the park will cost about $200,000 and will be funded from the facilities budget.
Converting on-campus parking lots into green space is part of the ongoing implementation of the Campus Development Plan, which similarly transformed the east side of the Left Bank building at 31st and Walnut streets into a grassy area last fall.
"Parking lots are an eyesore," Blaik said. "And they cause water drainage problems.... Green areas are more environmentally friendly."
The construction of parking garages over the last few years has made many surface lots obsolete, Blaik added.
"The need isn't there anymore," he said, stating that surface lots service only a small number of people. "Green public spaces are an amenity for thousands of people."
According to Blaik, the University will convert other paved areas into green spaces, including the lot behind Steinberg-Dietrich Hall, the lot next to Hill House, part of the loading dock on Walnut Street behind Van Pelt Library and an area on Chancellor Street near the Levine Hall site.
The Franklin Building houses various executive offices, and those who utilized the former lot have been given parking permits in the garage facilities at 34th and Chestnut streets and at 38th and Walnut streets.
"It's not been a big deal at all," said Associate Vice President John Shannon, who now makes the three-block trek from 38th Street to his Franklin Building office every morning. "In all honesty, it forces me to get some exercise in my routine. Having a parking space right outside your office is both a blessing and a curse."
But students who live in Kings Court English College House, which is located across the street from the site of the new park on 36th and Sansom streets, have said that the construction has been an inconvenience.
"At around nine or ten in the morning, it will get really noisy," Engineering freshman Anne Kim said. "But it's just the noise that's a problem. There's no dust or anything."
The noise has become intrusive mainly for those students who live within close proximity to the construction. Engineering freshman Arthur Chan, whose window faces the site, said that the noise has woken him up in the morning on several occasions.
"They start banging very early," Chan said. "We complained to our RA... and Facilities... but this morning the noise started up again."
Blaik, however, noted that noise "is inevitable with construction."
"We have been very careful," he said. "Construction doesn't start until nine in the morning. I know that's early for some students."
Blaik added that jackhammering, the loudest activity of the construction process, should be done by today or tomorrow.
