The athletic department announced last week that the new baseball park slated for the northwest corner of the gravel parking lot outside Autzen Stadium will eat up about 500 parking spots – and if you want a shot at reserving one on football game days, you’ll have to donate more.
The spots will be removed starting this summer when construction begins, leaving 2,800 spots in Autzen’s lot.
But once the baseball stadium is finished it is intended to be a tailgating “haven” similar to the Moshofsky Center. The athletic department also says it will save $3 million by electing to use property it already owns for the stadium.
Even still, taking away that many spots is uprooting some time-tested traditions.
“It’s just really a part of our lives,” said Cyndy Hillier, who has been a season ticket-holder with her husband for more than a decade. “We used to have three parking passes and now it’s down to one and we can’t get everyone in. So it’s really kind of a bummer.”
Hillier cooks for days before each home game, brings her children and sets up fake grass and lawn chairs in the Autzen lot for large tailgates.
“It’s a tradition that’s being ripped away from us,” she said. “We do it in place of vacations.”
Hillier’s husband Tom said they’ll keep coming to games despite the changes.
“Change is change,” he said. “I mean, my attitude about it is that it’s going to be different and we’ll see how it works. If it proves not to work then maybe we’ll reconsider.”
Like other donors, the Hilliers would have to increase their annual donation to $3,500 if they wanted to reserve a spot for their car. They decided not to do that, and instead will try to arrive earlier and claim one of the 400 to 600 first-come-first-served spots designated for donors.
Non-donors won’t be able to park in the Autzen lot, and RVs will no longer have general admission parking. Instead, RV’ers must donate at least $5,000 to reserve a space. Season ticket-holders must complete a 2008 Football Donor Parking Request Form before April 25 if they want access to one of the reserved spots.
The athletic department hopes the crammed lot will only burden tailgaters until construction on the baseball stadium is complete.
“The new stadium will be utilized as part of the football game experience,” says an athletic department press release. “That will include live music and other festivities, while the video board in the baseball facility will be coordinated to display action inside Autzen Stadium as well as other football games.”
But parking the car near the stadium on game days will get tougher.
According to Autzen’s planning documents, developers estimated there would be three occupants per vehicle traveling to football games, which could mean as many as 15,000 cars are drawn to the area on game days.
City code requires the University to provide at least 4,749 spaces within 1,000 feet of Autzen, and including the contracted lots with businesses along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, the University should stay above the minimum, according to The Register-Guard.
Competition for business parking lots along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard has also shot up.
“We’ve had probably 100 to 150 calls from people who were displaced and they all want a place to park,” said Max Schumacher, treasurer of the Eugene Masonic Lodge No. 11. That lot holds about 500 cars, not including RV’s.
Schumacher said it’s likely the lodge will increase its parking rates only slightly, which are currently $50 a day, and it is considering allowing cars to reserve parking.
It’s a change most tailgaters will have to get used to.
“It makes a lot of sense to use the property that they’re using to build the stadium,” Tom Hillier said. “But obviously that’s going to mean change and change is hard. Obviously some people don’t like it but you have to take the good with the bad.”
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