WKU’s third parking structure will open for the first time for visitors on Friday, Nov. 10, for WKU’s Head for the Hill event.

Parking Structure 3 will provide parking for the influx of visitors registered to attend the recruitment event. Head for the Hill is WKU’s free, open-house event for visitors interested in learning more about WKU, according to the event’s webpage.

PS3 will also be used on Saturday, Nov. 17, when the WKU football team plays Middle Tennessee State University, said Jennifer Tougas, director of Parking and Transportation Services. She said the parking structure will officially open on Nov. 20.

“At that point, we will increase our C1 permit sales to pull commuters to main campus,” Tougas said in an email.

However, construction will not be completely finished by Nov. 10, Tougas said. She said gates still need to be installed.

The gates are expected to be installed during the week of Nov. 13, Tougas said.

Construction on WKU’s third parking structure began in fall of 2016. Bryan Russell, chief facilities officer, said the original design for the $10 million structure included six floors with between 500 and 600 spaces. He said a seventh floor and an additional 100 parking spaces were later added to the design. The structure now has around 670 parking spaces.

“This is truly a great project for our students,” Russell said in an email.

Tougas said PS3 will house H9 permit holders. She said it will also serve as an overflow zone for anyone with main campus parking permits.

Tougas said all campus residents who park on South Campus should be able to park on Main Campus at the end of the semester. She said Parking and Transportation will discontinue the Sunday shuttle service, which was added to compensate for the loss of parking spaces due to construction, once all residents are able to park on campus.

Tougas said all South Campus permit holders were notified that the waitlists the Adams Street Lot (H6 permits), the South Chestnut Lot (H7 permits) and the Creason Lot (H9 permits) were recently emptied. She said those permit holders were encouraged to add their names to the new waitlists for those parking zones.

“We will continue to work from the waiting lists until we have moved all residents to main campus,” Tougas said.

The end of construction also means the entire Creason Lot will soon be open for parking. Throughout the construction process, parts of the Creason Lot had been blocked off to allow for construction work. This limited the number of H9 permit holders who were able to park there.

The completion date for PS3 has changed throughout the semester. An initial timeline gave the completion date as sometime in September. The date then changed to the end of October, and is now set to officially open on Nov. 20.

Reporter Emma Collins can be reached at 270-745-6011 and [email protected].