New land will help parking woes

JMU may add about 1,000 additional parking spaces in the year 2010.

The Board of Visitors agreed to purchase land from Rockingham Memorial Hospital and hopes to use some of it to add parking spaces. “SGA is working to lobby a bill which will entitle all 16 acres of Rockingham Memorial Hospital property to JMU,” Student Body President Tom Culligan said.

The legislation will be decided on by the Virginia General Assembly in late February or early March as part of the budget increase. If it is passed, JMU will get $40 million from the state and will have to raise $10 million on its own in order to pay the hospital $50 million over the next five years.

The SGA is planning on lobbying and using a letter-writing campaign to raise awareness and support of students, faculty and the community to raise the necessary $10 million. Although it will take five years to acquire all the property through payments, three parking lots, two of which will be decks, can be built once the property is JMU’s.

“We really need the unity of the campus and community to make this happen,” Culligan said.