The Student News Site of Georgia Highlands College

Six Mile Post

The Student News Site of Georgia Highlands College

Six Mile Post

The Student News Site of Georgia Highlands College

Six Mile Post

Employee parking lot is being demolished and replaced by green space on the Floyd campus

The old employee parking lot located between the Lakeview Building and the McCorkle Administration Building on the Floyd campus is being turned into a green space. Photo by Joseph McDaniel
The old employee parking lot located between the Lakeview Building and the McCorkle Administration Building on the Floyd campus is being turned into a green space. Photo by Joseph McDaniel

The faculty and staff parking lot between the Lakeview and McCorkle buildings on the Floyd campus is being replaced with green space, according to both Phillip Kimsey, the director of plant operations and Todd Jones, vice president of student affairs and Floyd campus dean.

Construction was originally supposed to be completed by the time students’ returned after winter break. However, due to weather delays the green space should be completed by early February, if weather permits. Until summer, students will only see sod in this new green space.

The purpose of this new green space will be to encourage outside learning and provide an outside meeting place for students.

There will also be a back entrance to the Lakeview and the McCorkle Administration buildings coming soon. It will be a courtyard with trees, grass, and seasonal flowers. The hope is that this will make the campus more pedestrian friendly as well. This area will also be irrigated.

Kimsey said that at the very beginning of President Donald Green’s time at GHC, a survey was done with a group of architects to discuss how the Floyd campus could be improved.

Students, faculty, and staff were all represented at these meetings and gave their input. Creating more green space has been one of Green’s top priority projects for the Floyd campus. The funding for this particular project came from a contingency fund comprised of leftover funding from all departments. The cost of this project has been approximately $100,000.

In addition to the leftover department funding, between 1% and 3% of student tuition has also gone into this project as well as others.

In addition to the cost, this project has also relocated about 24 faculty parking spots. These have been moved to the main lot outside of McCorkle.

This green space, along with other updates and changes, are steps in modernizing the campus to give students the best possible college experience.

Todd Jones, said “These are improvements, in large part, for the students… to help achieve their educational goal.”

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