News

Date Posted: 04/29/2010

 

 

Parking isn't free. But the view is.

MCAD's new Gateway Garden solves a tricky equation. Add parking for the MCAD community without subtracting from the neighborhood's history and character, without removing urban greenery, and without encouraging car-centered commuting.

The Gateway Garden isn't just additional campus parking, though it does add more than 100 parking spots. It's also a sculpture garden and green space. The parking will be set back from the street, behind 12,282 square feet of grasses, flowers, showy trees, and shrubs, into which will be mixed outdoor art works.

 

 

In essence, we're building a park: seventeen scrubby trees replaced by forty-eight beauties. Rain gardens to capture run-off. Sculptures resting on raised pads in the shapes of homes that once stood there. This is homage to a neighborhood, to the community in which MCAD resides.

 

 

The Heritage Preservation Committee, pleased with our efforts at sustainability, approved the Gateway Garden and campus parking plan with a resounding 6-1 vote. But there's more. New bike racks added, to the tune of 108 more. A new HOURCAR available to the community. Bus passes newly available in the Art Cellar and a range of other transportation alternatives to consider.

Utility, sustainability, aesthetics -- MCAD's Gateway Garden.