Stevens Point leaders will consider allowing UW-Stevens Point to demolish student rentals and build new parking lot. (stevenspoint.com)

By Brandi Makuski

City leaders on Monday will consider a request from UW-Stevens Point to construct a new parking lot on Portage Street between Isadore and Division streets.

The university owns six properties- two of which are vacant- on Portage St. adjacent to Stevens Point Fire Station #1. Four of those properties are currently student rentals which will be demolished for the new 75- stall lot.

According to city documents, the request would require city leaders to amend the city’s comprehensive plan and future land use map, which is currently undergoing an update. City leaders will also need to approve rezoning of the lots from two-family residential to university facilities district. In a memo to the City Plan Commission, the Department of Community Development indicates the request is within the boundaries of city ordinance and has recommended approval, thought the Commission will have the final say.

Carl Rasmussen, director of facilities planning for the university, says the school needs the additional parking space to help account for some of the 300 stalls it will lose with the construction of the new science building.

“The campus identified this need when we did our master plan in 2007, acquiring these parcels and making them a part of our campus, and we presented that to the Council in 2007, so this isn’t like this is some surprise,” Rasmussen said. “This new lot is going to partially replace the parking we’re losing with the new chemistry, biology and science building, and we hope to start building by late summer, 2015.”

He said the demolition and construction work for the parking lot work would be contracted out by the UW System and didn’t immediately know how long the project would take to complete.

The university announced it would rebuild the $75 million dollar, 170,000 square science building with sustainable construction and modern technology. The new building will have seven 55-seat classrooms, two 110-seat lecture halls, laboratory and research space, faculty and staff offices, a conservatory, herbarium and animal care facilities. Completion of the project is expected in the summer of 2017.

The new science building is the largest stand-alone construction project in the past 40 years. It will replace a science facility built in 1963. The last major academic building project at UWSP was the 113,000-square-foot addition and remodeling of the College of Fine Arts building, completed in 2005.

The City Plan Commission could hear public comment on the new parking lot prior to voting. The Commission meets at 5 PM on Monday, Aug. 4 at the Lincoln Center, 1519 Water Street.