Student complaints about parking on campus–already one of the hottest topics at Lipscomb–will likely grow even louder when students return to class Monday without the normal amount of overflow parking available in the Stokes lot.
Lipscomb officials announced late Thursday that most of the parking at Stokes, located on Belmont Boulevard, no longer will be available for university students and faculty, and instead those cars will be directed to park by the Lipscomb Academy high school football field lot and take shuttles to class.
“For the last several years we have been fortunate to be able to use the parking lot at the Stokes Elementary School property while that facility is not being used by Metro Nashville Public School system,” wrote Kim Chaudoin, director of University Communication and Marketing, in an email. “However, due to an unexpected and sudden decision by Metro Nashville, only a small portion of that lot will be available for Lipscomb’s use this fall.”
High school football field parking lot
The high school football field, located at Caldwell and Lealand lanes, will be the new source of overflow parking, and shuttle buses will be available to transport students to campus. The shuttles will be available every 15 minutes for those parked at the football field in the mornings from 7-8:30 a.m. and in the afternoons from 4:30-5:30 p.m. The shuttles will pick up students at the football field’s ticket booth and will drop off at the by Allen Arena. During other hours of the day, a shuttle will be available every 30 minutes. The university is asking all students that arrive on campus after 8 a.m. to park at the football field.
The university email said the buses will always go by their schedules and will not leave either location early. Shelter will be provided during the event of inclement weather. A full shuttle schedule can be found at safety.lipscomb.edu.
The university said walking from the field to campus will take about 10 minutes.
Metro Nashville Public Schools did not respond immediately to a request for comments about the new development.
All questions can be directed to Lipscomb Security and Safety at 615-966-7600.
Please continue to follow Lumination as this story develops. Emily Snell contributed to this article.