Charter school gym faces parking problem

April 11, 2006

DARRELL L. BREESE

Frontiersman reporter

PALMER - The good news is Academy Charter School got a $2.5 million grant from the state to construct a gymnasium on the grounds of the Palmer campus, and F-E Contracting has begun thawing the ground in preparation for laying the foundation for the new facility.

The bad news is the limited number of parking spots will limit the use of the facility when complete. City of Palmer parking regulations and the state fire marshal may prevent the gym from utilizing its capacity of 1,000 people.

&#8220Where it stands now, the occupancy rating for the building has been reduced from 1,000 to 350 people,” Mat-Su Borough Public Works Director Keith Rountree said. &#8220The current plan is to have 97 parking spaces, and because of that the City of Palmer and the fire marshal have lowered the occupancy.”

Palmer city code requires there be at least one parking space for every four seats allowed in occupancy rating. The state fire marshal uses a similar standard.

According to Rountree, the problem arose from adding a large building to a site which originally did not include a plan for it.

&#8220This is a good indication as to why we spend so much time in site selection for new schools,” Assembly member Cindy Bettine said of Rountree's announcement. &#8220The process works well for normal projects, but has resulted in a problem here.”

Bettine asked if it would be possible for the school to use the parking lot at the Division of Forestry building across Airport Road to meet the parking requirement.

Rountree indicated it was not possible, because the State Department of Transportation had safety concerns about people crossing the road.

The design-build contract was awarded to F-E Contracting in January, and the design for the gym is 99 percent complete.

The old borough operations and maintenance building, which became the Charter School Administration building, recently was removed from the site, and borough officials are looking for a new site for storage building on the lot, to provide more space for parking and to improve traffic flow.

&#8220We're also looking into getting some land from the Hermon Brothers just to the west of the school,” Rountree said. &#8220Another option is expanding the parking at the borough campground to the east. If we can find additional parking, the fire marshal will raise the occupancy rating allowing the school to use the full capacity of the building.”

Rountree told the assembly that, despite the problem with the parking, the project still is on schedule for construction to be completed by October.

Contact Darrell L. Breese at 352-2267 or at darrell.breese@ frontiersman.com.