Elon University campus parking expansions set to ‘build capacity’ for campus lots

This year, freshmen are only allowed to park in designated lots marked with an “FY” sign matching their parking permits. Currently, freshman are temporarily parking in additional designated spaces as construction continues for the upcoming freshman lot.

Campus Safety and Police announced another delay in opening the freshmen parking lot earlier this month. The lot, located near the Francis Center, was supposed to open at the start of the 2025-26 academic year. 

The decision to move freshman parking to separate lots was announced in November 2023, and the new Francis Center lot was initially expected to be completed at the start of the 2024-25 academic year. But, Campus Safety and Police Chief Joe LeMire said construction couldn’t be started until they completed a traffic study and addressed some environmental concerns, including taking into account a nearby stream. 

However, even after construction began on the site earlier this year, crews hit another roadblock that paused summer construction: significant rainfall. 

“The ground stayed saturated for periods of time, so it delayed the work that was going to get done,” LeMire said. “And then we thought we would still make the deadline, and another storm came through and delayed it again.”

The Francis Center lot is projected to have more than 500 parking spots. LeMire said he anticipates the earliest the lot will open is around fall break. 

Although the lot near the Francis Center is not complete, students with the “FY” permit are still required to park in designated locations. These areas temporarily include a lot in the east part of Danieley Center, a section of the Hunt B parking lot behind the Schar Center and marked areas on South Campus.

“You’re still kind of in the remote sides of campus, but we’re hopefully building capacity internally,” LeMire said. 

Building capacity is one of the main reasons for moving freshmen parking according to LeMire. He said his department conducted a study researching parking policies for freshmen at 33 schools. LeMire said the schools in the study included Elon’s peer institutions, schools in North Carolina and schools similar in size to Elon. 

Of the 33 schools, LeMire said half did not allow freshmen to have cars and the other half allowed freshmen to have cars but required those students to park in remote lots. He said Elon was the only university that mixed freshman parking with other student parking. 

Another reason to move freshmen to lots farther from the main buildings, LeMire said, is keeping freshman students on campus. 

“Although it’s an inconvenience, maybe first-year students being parked in a remote lot also kind of forces them to integrate to campus and learn other transportation options,” LeMire said.

Once completed, LeMire said Elon Express shuttles and the E-ride program will be available for students to come and go from the Francis Center lot. He said since the Elon Express already has routes up and down Haggard Avenue, the Francis Center lot is a good location for the new parking lot.

“I think what we experience too is that a lot of students use Uber and don’t even tell us about it,” LeMire said. “We just don’t want to force them to use Uber unless we set up a program with Uber. But right now, we’re just doing actual shuttles, buses and after-hour E-Rides and then we’ll see where that capacity leads us to.”

The construction of the new HealthEU center removed around 120 parking spots in the Innovation Quad lot. However, with the added 500 spots from the future Francis Center lot, LeMire said there will be a gain of around 380 new parking spots. He also pointed to the 110 spots for freshman in the Danieley Center lot.

LeMire said that while parking in the Innovation Quad lot shouldn’t be a problem since first year students won’t be taking up spaces, the department will take this academic year to see if any adjustments need to be made.

“There may be some changes that happen in the future, but sometimes you just don’t understand what the human reaction is going to be,” LeMire said. “And where people will spread out to park. And we got to see where those crunch points are going to be.”

When changes to freshmen parking were first announced in 2023, Campus Safety and Police also increased the price for parking permits, from $160 to $225 for regular permits and $50 to $100 for Global Neighborhood lot permits.

According to LeMire, the department was hoping the timing of the increased prices and opening of the new lot would align. The department chose to continue with the price increase when the lot was delayed. Prior to the raise, it had been more than 15 years since the price for parking permits increased. 

LeMire said parking rules are regularly enforced, including on the weekends. He said he hopes students can appreciate the benefits of this change and that freshmen can look forward to more parking options after their first year. 

LeMire said students can find parking maps, shuttle schedules and E-Rides on the Rave Guardian app. Both the temporary parking map and 2025-26 parking map with the completed Francis Center lot are available on Campus Safety and Police’s website.