Photo Submitted by Quintavia McKay
After FAMU broke ground on a new 700-bed residence hall in March, the building process quickly began a month later. The residence hall, which is planned to be completed by fall 2020, has already affected other aspects on campus.
The new building took away a large area of the gravel lot at MLK Boulevard and Osceola Street, which was a prominent student parking lot during the academic year.
This caused students to take to social media wondering where they can park when most areas are restricted for faculty and the garage can only hold a certain amount of commuter students.
“Honestly, FAMU shouldn’t be giving out tickets at all, ain’t nowhere to park in the first place,” tweeted by @wildd_thangg.
Photo Submitted by Quintavia McKay
Aside from the parking loss and gaining two slightly smaller lots for students this fall, the residence hall has also taken away a few aspects of the campus that only a few know about.
Wayne Pye, coordinator of intramural sports, is familiar with the changes. “They took away a softball, baseball and soccer field,” said Pye.
As the intramural sports season begins many students are signing up and forming teams that need the adequate amount of practice space.
At a meeting with Residents Assistants, Coach Pye encouraged RAs to get their residents involved in the intramural leagues hosted at the rec center. Pye also informed them that the new building of the residence hall took away fields for students to use during their participation in intramural sports.
Women’s soccer coach Chris Hollands said, “Right now we are using whatever space on the turf field which is not much at the scheduled time we can.”
His team was one of the few groups affect4r by this new venture. “Not ideal but we work with what we have,” he said.
Hollands realized that students weren’t aware of the change but he got word from those who work at the rec center shortly before construction began. He said he was under the impression that there is a contingency plan to provide space after the construction.
“We have to find more space for the students to use in the meantime, but they say they will re-do the soccer field once the dorm is completed in 2020,” Pye said.
This new residence hall is expected to help with the increasing growth in enrollment on campus.
This residence hall is set to replace Paddyfote, Truth Hall and Palmetto North.