Message from the Department of Parking Management

This is a university-wide communication to update the students, faculty and staff about matters of interest to the Southern Miss family.

The opening of the new Thad Cochran Center is fast approaching and some parking needs to help facilitate the growing number of meetings and special events that are currently being booked have been brought to our attention. Bookings for the 2006-2007 school years are coming in on a regular basis and this is expected to be the trend for many years to come. Several meetings have been held with Thad Cochran Center and Barnes & Noble staff in the last six months listening to what their needs will be and at the same time we have been looking at available parking around the center, current designated parking zones, and usage in those zones. We also looked at proposed and upcoming projects dealing with parking.

In evaluating several options available to us, we developed a plan of action that we feel is best suited for the Thad Cochran Center and is the least intrusive to the university community who utilize the available parking on campus. A special meeting was held with members of the Parking Management Committee in June 2006. In that meeting we reviewed with them the purpose and intent of the changes at length. The committee, after reviewing our proposal, voted unanimously in favor or our proposed changes.

Beginning Friday, August 18, 2006, the following changes will go into affect:

1. The Faculty/Staff zone (106 spaces) currently located north of the Bobby Chain Technology Building will become “reserved event parking” for the Thad Cochran Center. This will help to facilitate the many smaller events scheduled for the facility on a daily basis.



2. The first row of parking on Black and Gold Boulevard (28 spaces) that is currently residence parking just north of the Bobby Chain Technology Center lot will become two-hour metered parking. This parking will be utilized for visitors to Barnes & Noble, Fresh Food Company (Food Services), Eagle Dining (Unique Catering), the bookstore, etc.



3. The remaining three rows of what is currently residence zone parking (75 spaces) on Black and Gold Boulevard between Golden Eagle Drive and the first turn-around going east, will be Faculty/Staff parking. There are approximately 25 spaces in the Faculty/Staff parking located on Golden Eagle Drive by the Payne Center that are not being used that will make up for the total loss of parking in the Bobby Chain Technology lot.



4. The last three rows of Faculty/Staff parking currently located in the north Bond Hall lot (84 spaces) will be changed to residence zone parking. This along with 15 additional residence zone spaces that were obtained after removing trailers from the Bond Hall lot, will make up for the lost Residence parking on Black and Gold Boulevard.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call Parking Management at 601.266.4944.