A few times each year, a student or faculty member will approach Alma Allred with the easy solution to the University of Utah’s parking problems?just build two or three parking structures.

It sounds simple, but the prospect of building a multi level terrace doesn’t sit well with administrators.

“Building a parking garage is always a losing proposition,” said Allred, the director of parking services.

The discomfort comes from a mixture of financial and political reasons.

A parking structure costs nearly $14,000 per stall to construct. To build a 600-stall structure would cost $8.4 million. Since parking services is an auxiliary of the U, it can’t receive state appropriations. All parking services funds must come from permit sales, student fees, visitor parking and meters.

Parking permit prices would have to skyrocket to obtain an additional $8.4 million.

But this price barrier hasn’t stopped parking services from trying to build a structure or two in the past.

Parking services acted after a student petition requested a structure in 1993.

The parking advisory committee made several recommendations for parking structures in the stadium lot, the Field House lot, one north of the chemistry building and one between the biology building and the law school.

“Although we could afford it, it was out of our hands,” Allred said.

The advisory committee made recommendations, but the proposals died in the U’s lengthy approval process.

“We have attempted to get a structure built on lower campus in the past and the people who come out of the woodwork are amazing,” said Stephen Olshek, administrative manager for parking service.

After the parking advisory committee, other campus entities must weigh in, including the staff advisory committee, the Academic Senate, central administration and the U’s Board of Trustees.

If it gets past this point, then the structure would need the approval of the state Board of Regents and even the Legislature.

To get so many entities on the same page is a logistical nightmare, to say the least, especially since many on campus don’t want more parking, Olshek said.

When parking services has tried to get a parking structure, some faculty and staff always come out against it because the structure would take up land that could be used for more classroom space. Parking services is also faced with the contingent on campus who are solidly against eliminating any green space.

That leaves building a structure on an existing parking lot. Allred said this doesn’t help anything, since the net gain of parking is mitigated by the fact that the structure is built on existing spots.

While structures are a popular solution to parking difficulties in everyday conversation, the parking advisory committee hasn’t fielded a request for quite some time.

“It just hasn’t come up during my tenure, which has been for the past 15 months,” said Dr. Peter Martin, the advisory committee chairman. “If somebody brought it up, we would discuss it.”

As part of the parking task force, recently set up by President Bernie Machen, Student Body President Ben Lowe wants to discuss parking structures as part of a long term solution.

In the short run, the U will use part of a parking structure that the Latter-day Saint Institute of Religion will construct on South Campus Drive sometime next year.

A structure may be part of a solution to parking woes, but it is not the panacea that people make it out to be, Allred said.