Could a new State College parking garage eventually include housing? Council talks options
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- State College council supports extending McAllister Street Garage lifespan by eight years before rebuild.
- Cost analysis shows $11M–$12M gap between 2-year and 8-year replacement plans.
- Officials plan to explore solar panels and housing options at the parking garage.
The State College Borough Council is strongly considering moving forward with repair plans that will give the McAllister Street Parking Deck eight more years of use before the borough demolishes the 34-year-old structure and builds a new parking garage — which could include a rooftop solar panel or housing, based on council discussion during Monday’s work session.
The council doesn’t take official votes during work sessions, but the members were in agreement that the best option is to delay construction of a new facility and extend the garage’s life. That would grant council more time to explore additional options for the new facility, like solar and housing.
“I think this is a huge project. I think we really need to think it out. And I will agree with the fact that I would love to see affordable housing in it, solar in it, all these things would come into play for us developing it in an affordable living condition in the downtown,” council member Kevin Kassab said. “So I would definitely say we should try to extend the life of the garage and really think this out, get input from the community on it, and then move forward with that.”
The new parking garage at the McAllister Street site would also functionally replace the Pugh Street Garage, a 54-year-old facility that is also nearing the end of its useful life. During a previous council meeting, Kevin Carrigan, vice president of THA Consulting, a design firm that specializes in parking, presented a condition assessment of both facilities that showed the need for repairs, although neither had any dangerous conditions.
The council heard an additional analysis on the McAllister Street Garage during Monday night’s work session. It previously heard two options for the garages. The repair options for McAllister included plans that could extend how long the borough can use the garage by two or eight years before building a new parking garage.
Carrigan showed two sub-options for each repair plan Monday, which can be seen in the table below. One option is for a new garage at McAllister Street with retail along Beaver Avenue and rooftop solar panels. In the second option the new garage would have provisions to build additional residential housing up to a certain height. Both options included two different timeframes.
Comparing the rooftop solar options, there is about an $11 million cost difference between the different timeframes. The total cost estimate for a two-year repair plan with building a new facility with a rooftop solar is about $57.8 million over 10 years, and about $68.8 million for the eight-year repair plan — the timeframe the council has expressed its preference for — that would build a new facility with a rooftop solar array.
“That’s basically the time value of money, considering escalations. In our analysis, we considered 4% escalations per year, and that’s based on our discussions with multiple contractors in the industry,” Carrigan said.
Comparing the residential provisions options, there is about a $12 million cost difference between the timeframes. Because the borough would be repairing the garage for a longer amount of time with the eight-year repair option before building a new garage, there are additional repair costs contributing to the higher overall cost estimate.
Borough Manager Tom Fountaine emphasized the solar panels and housing provisions are just examples of what can be done and the final scope of the entire project is still far in the future. But council members were interested in both options.
Fountaine said they’ll plan to move forward with the delays and prepare the budget accordingly to include the structural repairs that need to be done in 2026 and 2027, and the years leading up to the end life of the two facilities.
What’s the future of the Pugh Street site?
The McAllister Street Parking Deck is the replacement site for its current parking deck and the Pugh Street Garage, which may last another 10 years depending on how the council decides to move forward with its repair plan.
It’s unclear what will go in the Pugh Street site after the garage is demolished. The Nittany Performing Arts Centre is one idea that has been pitched — and a presentation on it is anticipated for the next council meeting — but Council President Evan Myers cautioned that no decision has been made on the future of the site.
“There’s a lot of different potential claims on that site. There’s a lot of potential things that could happen there and there’s been one thing that’s been presented thus far, but especially if we have 10 years, that gives us another reason to think about what’s going to happen on that site too, rather than just default to … one proposal,” Myers said.
