Briana Troske

The Union’s east parking lot will be transformed into a pay-by-the hour lot.

Throughout the year, The Collegian has reported on the first stages of many stories. We have some updates of the stories and the current status of projects going on around campus.

One update for the campus includes the commuter parking lot on the east side of The Union. Earlier this year, administrators discussed changing it into a pay-by-the-hour lot, and the decision has been made to make the transition.

“There will be an entrance fee initially for the lot,” said Jennifer Novotny, the director of The Union. “We are still looking at a couple of other universities’ pay lots and deciding on the rest of the cost like paying a certain amount by the hour.”

Novotny said The Union has been looking at other colleges and seeing how pay-by-the-hour works with their students and visitors. They visited Minnesota State University, Mankato and watched how it managed its lot.

“We are working on all the details such as cost, signage and also the hours of the lot,” said Novotny. “We hope to have it implemented by the fall of 2010.”

Phase II of the Performing Arts Center has not moved forward due to a lack of funding.

At the beginning of the fall semester, the Students’ Association members met with the Brookings City Council to ask for assistance to help fund Phase II of the Performing Arts Center.

“We gave it a good run and tried to get some money from the city, but with the economy as it is right now, it proved to be very difficult,” said Matt Tollefson, a senior majoring in agriculture education from Clark, S.D.

Tollefson was the president for the Students’ Association last fall and Phase II of the PAC was part of his presidential platform. Phase II of the PAC would be mainly focused on building a proscenium theater which would be able to hold 850 seats. The new addition to the current PAC would cost approximately $11.8 million.

“It is now up to the new senate for this upcoming year,” said Tollefson. “It also depends on the city if the project can begin.”

Three residence halls will continue to have 24-hour visitation due to the success of the pilot dorms.

Twenty-four hour visitation for people in residence halls including Binnewies, Young and Caldwell Halls has been successful during the 2009-10 school year. Due to the success of these halls, two of the three new residence halls being built will also have 24-hour visitation.

Only certain halls will have the extended visitation time. Many others across campus will keep the original visitation hours.

“We did not expand it to more dorms because some students did not want the 24-hour visitation because they enjoy the quiet,” said Marysz Rames, vice president of student affairs. “We like to give the students a choice in the matter.”