At its last meeting of the school year, the University’s Board of Regents will take another look at the possible construction of a parking garage on Wall Street, near the Kellogg Eye Center, north of the University Hospital.

The Regents approved construction of the Wall Street East Parking Structure in September 2008, only to cancel the plans in July 2009 due to the proposed Fuller Road Intermodal Station project with the city of Ann Arbor.

Now that the University has scrapped plans for the Fuller station due to funding complications, Timothy Slottow, the University’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, is asking the board to reconsider the Wall Street plans.

Slottow requested in a communication to the regents that they approve the hiring of an architect to restart the project.

Slottow noted that the opening of the C. S. Mott Children’s and Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital has greatly increased the pressure for parking in the area. According to the communication, 300 “prime” parking places for employees were repurposed for use by patients and visitors.

“More employees are parking remotely and traveling by bus to work,” Slottow wrote. “On a typical day, we estimate that 2,500 employees are parking in remote lots and taking a bus or shuttle to the medical center. Additionally, there are about 1,500 employees utilizing alternative means of transportation, including riding the bus from home, ridesharing, or van pooling.”

The resurrected project will cost approximately $34 million and will add 500 parking spaces to the area. Slottow added that environmental sustainability is a focus for the project and the new structure will include charging stations for electric vehicles.

“We envision an architecturally-detailed facade with open space at either end of the structure that will contain park-like landscaping with trees and water features for storm water management which may also be used for irrigation and reducing storm runoff to the river,” Slottow wrote.

When the University proposed the Wall Street structure in 2008, residents living in Ann Arbor’s nearby Lower Town neighborhood expressed concerns about the structure’s construction. At the time, Ann Arbor Mayor John Hieftje asked the regents to look for alternatives to placing the parking structure in the area, which has high traffic.

“We would like you to work with us, to step back — it doesn't have to be for a long time — and take a look," Hieftje said. "Is there another way to get people into the Wall Street area except creating two new parking structures there, in what could become a very congested area?"

University hospitals to expand intensive care units

In a communication with the regents, Slottow and Ora Pescovitz, the executive vice president for medical affairs, wrote that the vacated space in the former C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital allows for expansion of the intensive care unit to meet growing demand.

“This project will renovate approximately 163,000 gross square feet for a new adult operating room suite of eight rooms, a new imaging suite, 95 general patient care beds, and 25 intensive care beds to serve primarily Neurosciences programs,” Slottow and Pescovitz wrote.

About 104,000 square feet will also be repurposed for use as office space in the new C.S. Mott Children’s and Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospitals.