By Aaron Warnick | Photo Editor
Duquesne University is adding a new parking garage to campus.
The new garage will stand where the Bagamoyo building stood on for over 100 years. The building was located on Forbes Avenue between the existing parking garage and the A.J. Palumbo Center.
Demolition of the Bagamoyo building began in May and was completed in August. The space will be used to expand the neighboring parking lot until the University is ready to begin construction on the new garage.
The Duquesne University Master Plan is a publicly available document that details proposed projects. The current Master Plan, which was written in 2004, calls for an additional parking structure east of the existing Forbes Avenue garage.
According to the Master Plan, the garage will not exceed the height of the neighboring Forbes garage, which means that it could potentially stand seven stories tall.
The Master Plan says that the project could create anywhere from 240 to 530 additional parking spaces on campus.
The project is still in the early stages of planning and does not have a projected time frame or budget, according to Mark Minoski, construction project manager for facilities management.
The campus explored other options before deciding to convert Bagamoyo into a temporary parking lot.
“We did multiple studies to find out if we could use [the Bagamoyo building] as an academic building or a theater, but it just wasn’t worth the cost of renovation,” Minoski said. “And we knew that we would just have to tear it down in a few years anyways because we knew that we wanted to use that space for a lot.”
The new garage could also include street level retail space like those in the Power Center, according to the master plan. The plan also says that the garage could potentially place university housing above the parking structure. However, the university is not currently intending to the space for anything but a parking lot.
“It’s one of the oldest buildings on campus… and, right there on Forbes, it was an eyesore,” Minoski said. “We knew that we were going to put a garage there, so we thought ‘we’ll just get that building out of the way now.’”
The retaining wall of the lot is made by the old foundation and brick of the Bagamoyo building, according to Minoski.
