Capitol ideas from U. students

The list of those concerned with the parking situation on Capitol Hill already includes many — from residents to legislators to city officials — especially when the Legislature rolls around every year.

This semester, an entire class of senior civil engineering students at the University of Utah can be added to the list.

As part of one of the students' final classes — Professional Practice and Design — they are presented with an engineering problem from around the city and must find a solution. Students in Larry Reaveley's class were assigned the task of improving the parking situation on Capitol Hill.

The criteria for the project came from the Capitol Preservation Board and state Capitol engineer and architect. The students determined which criteria they thought most important and came up with a list of 14 possible solutions. then narrowed it down to three designs.

The class was divided into three groups, with a project manager over each. The first group was in charge of the parking situation. Aaron Buchanan was chosen to be over that team. The city has a master plan it developed about 10 years ago with what Capitol Hill will eventually look like, but the problem is that the plan didn't incorporate very much parking into the area, Buchanan said.

The students came up with the idea to build a two-level underground parking garage directly east of the main Capitol building and adjacent to the existing underground employee-parking structure, which would add about 250 parking stalls.

The second portion of the project involved realigning the streets, mainly on East Capitol Boulevard but also sections of 500 North and 300 North, to make it more beautiful and add additional parking.

Lindzi Bell was the project manager over this portion of the project, which also integrated Memory Grove. Her team came up with the idea of widening the street and giving it more of a boulevard feel by adding islands with greenery to the center of the road, finishing the sidewalk along the hill overlooking the Grove, which currently ends abruptly, and having better access points for hiking down into Memory Grove, as well as a lookout point.

The third part of the project involves designing a neighborhood park and parking lot on the water tower hill northeast of the capitol by 500 North and East Capitol Boulevard. Brandon Preece was the project manager for that part of the project.