The Dunn-Oliver Acadome parking lot, which is basically used as student parking, except during basketball games, caused a great deal of heartache to students over the past decade due to the potholes, lack of striping, and its rugged terrain. However, university officials are providing a needed facelift to the parking lot by repaving it.

On Feb. 1, the division of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management sent out a mass email to all students, informing them of the upcoming reconstruction project of the Acadome parking lot.

Because of the numerous parking spaces that are regularly filled with automobiles, the university closed the parking lot for the next two weeks, causing students to park elsewhere.

The university has yet to release any further information.

While students are adjusting to their temporary parking spots elsewhere on campus, many are excited about the remodeling and fixture of the acadome parking lot.

Since a large number of students, faculty, and visitors dealt with the “treacherous” potholes and bumps from the old parking lot, they are glad to see the university is finally making steps to correct this problem.

Senior political science major Blake Young believes that repaving the parking lot was long overdue.

“Since my freshman year in 2017, this parking lot has been horrible,” Young said. “Every time you drove through the lot, you always went over a pothole or a bump, and those really mess up your tires. Of course, ASU wants to fix the lot once I’m about to graduate, but I am so glad that future students and current freshmen will get to experience a nice, smooth parking lot. They won’t have to go through the struggles I went through.”

Already, there is significant improvement in the new black pavement’s overall appearance of the Acadome parking lot, but sophomore interdisciplinary studies major Kimberly Mitchell believes more progress should be made concerning the other parking lots on campus.

“I am so glad ASU decided to fix the Acadome parking lot, but what about the other parking lots on campus?” Mitchell inquired. “Many, if not all, parking lots have potholes and bumps that need to be fixed. Not to mention, these roads we are driving on, they need some work as well! On top of that, I hope this new parking fee of $70 is not to pay off the lot’s new pavement because this should have been done a long time ago. A lot of my friends who graduated from here say the parking lot has been bad for a while, so why are they just now fixing it? To be on the positive side, hopefully, there is more to come, and they have made a tremendous first step.”

Like Mitchell, junior criminal justice major Xavier Turner believes “the parking lot fixture is amazing, but comes at a cost.  I definitely remember the struggle freshman year as I tried to move into the MLK residence hall that is right next to the parking lot. There were potholes for days! Not to mention how hard it was to exit from that lot with so many cars tightly parked there,” Turner said. “So, I am absolutely happy for this new and improved lot, but with this petition that came out recently about new and unnecessary fines, I am afraid that this new pavement might be the cause of that, but that is a whole other conversation. So, to answer your question, yes, I am very excited about the repaving of the Acadome parking lot!”

As students address their concerns and praises toward the parking lot, they wait for the university’s official announcement that will permit them to park in the upgraded parking lot.