Finally, a fix?

Fayetteville eyes high school parking

If there exists an issue that might be called the “third rail” of educational politics in Fayetteville, chief among our nominees would be solutions to the frustrating, regularly ignored parking crunch at the school district’s solitary high school.

Mentions of a political third rail typically arise on national politics, on subjects viewed as so politically controversial that elected leaders steer clear of them out a sense of political survival. The rail refers to a high-voltage part of modern subway systems. Touching the third rail can lead to electrocution.

Now it seems school officials might be ready to tackle the parking shortage, despite its history as a potentially volatile, unsolvable matter.

Fayetteville would have benefited from a second high school a long time ago, like Springdale, Rogers and Bentonville did. But that’s a battle fought and settled about 15 years ago in a tumultuous and critical moment before the city’s high school was expanded starting in 2012, more than 60 years after the school was first placed at its spot on Stone Street (now Bulldog Boulevard). Today, the front-facing portion looks toward Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

The massive building expansion project created an outstanding, if sometimes impersonal, atmosphere for learning but was never designed to solve FHS’s persistent parking shortages. In some ways, the parking has gotten better. But in others, such as the city’s crackdown on privately offered parking spaces for cash, the capacity for parking has tightened.

For a long time, it seemed school district officials just left it to students and parents to figure out what to do if a student didn’t manage to get one of the coveted, but limited parking permits. With projections of continued population growth in the region, including in Fayetteville, pretending everything is OK isn’t an option for FHS. At least not for anyone resistant to the head-in-thesand approach.

John Mulford, approaching the end of his first school year as superintendent in Fayetteville, strikes us as a leader who recognizes his job is to face up to challenges. How else can one explain venturing into a plan to relocate one of the district’s two longstanding junior highs and add a third one? But that’s a matter for another day.

Mulford recently outlined preliminary ideas for an on-campus parking garage for Fayetteville High School. It’s a bold idea in a school district that, for years, has behaved as if the parking conundrum was simply unsolvable or so tempestuous it wasn’t worth approaching.

But Mulford says a large increase in assessed land values has bolstered the property taxes schools rely on. The district’s in a good financial spot, he said.

“Either we address the parking or we don’t address the parking,” Mulford recently told school board members. “I’m of the mindset, let’s address it while we have the resources to do it.”

The high school has 500 parking spots for 2,600 students in grades 9-12. It features 300 spots reserved for teachers and staff. The high school site is largely landlocked, limiting the options for land-hungry parking lots. A parking deck could be four floors offering 630 parking spaces at $20 million to $22 million. A three-tier plan would cost $15 million to $16 million and provide 462 spaces, according to Mulford. He favors the smaller option.

Had Fayetteville chosen to move the high school elsewhere in those discussions in the late 2000s, space wouldn’t have been a constraint. The decision to remain a one-high school town at a land-locked site ensured administrators would one day have to face decisions just like these. That the district has experienced a bit of a property tax windfall is a fine opportunity to drive a solution forward.

Or take a wrong turn and keep pretending the parking crunch doesn’t exist.