Wednesday, September 5, 2001

Drain adds parking, increases field space
By Sam Eaton
Staff Reporter

A new storm drain being built west of the intramural fields on Bellaire Drive will provide additional Worth Hills parking, as well as more field space, said Director of Major Projects Jim Weller.

The old drain took run-off rainwater from Bellaire Drive, through a creek that went in between the intramural fields and the parking lot, and then emptied into the pond behind Worth Hills. The new drain takes the excess water underground and then to the pond.

Weller said the drain would be ready for landscaping within a couple of weeks.

“The actual storm drain itself will be done the week of Sept. 10 and then we’re going to start doing the landscaping on top of that,” Weller said.

Weller said that the landscaping would include paving part of the area for an extension of the parking lot, and also expanding the intramural field.

Weller said it hadn’t been determined yet exactly how many new parking spaces would be available by the completion of the project.

“Parking is a problem everywhere,” Weller said. “Wherever we can get parking spaces, we try and do the best we can.”

Some of the construction work had been slowed by rain but that the project was on schedule overall, he said.

“We had a problem when people were coming back to school because of the rain and that slowed us down a notch, but we’ve picked up an extra step now,” Weller said.

Physical Plant Administrator Will Stallworth said the drain only needed some minor tweaks before it would be ready for landscaping.

“We just need to finish up some of the irrigation with the drain, and then we’ll be ready to put the landscaping team on the job,” Stallworth said.

Weller said the City of Fort Worth had to approve and inspect the project before TCU could start work on it.

“We worked with the city and came up with a plan to fill up that ditch,” Weller said. “It’s just part of the drainage for that part of campus and that housing area on the south side of Bellaire Drive.”

Weller said that the size of intramural fields would also be increased by the landscaping team.

“The next phase is to do the parking lot and expansion of the intramural field there,” Weller said. “So we’ll capture several acres of campus property.”

Senior geology major Mitch Devries, who uses the athletic fields near the drainage site, said.

He was excited about the completion of the project, Devries said .

“It was rather an eyesore,” Devries said of the dirt that had been piled on the side of the parking lot since school began. “We all appreciate not having to jump over a mosquito infested creek.”

Sam Eaton
s.m.eaton@student.tcu.edu