MARSHALL — As a result of deterioration and improving the safety of students and staff, the Marshall Public School (MPS) District will be redesigning and doing a full replacement of the Marshall Middle School parking lot over the summer.

The reconstruction of the parking lot will be used entirely with long-term facilities maintenance (LTFM) funds, which does not dip into operational funds. It’s a separate fund that school districts use to pay for maintenance and accessibility-based improvement projects to existing school sites.

MPS Director of Operations Tricia Stelter detailed in her report, presented at last week’s board meeting, that the current middle school parking lot has been quickly deteriorating and was originally designed to serve a high school, noting that the current lot lacks a few key safety measures that will be addressed in the new design.

“The parking lot at the middle school (was) originally designed for this when it was a high school, so it’s not laid out the way it needs to be for middle school. If you’ve been through and dropped a kid off in the morning, it’s a bit chaotic out front trying to manage traffic and parking. It does not work well for the purposes of middle school, and it’s deteriorating … It needs to be fixed,” superintendent Jeremy Williams said. “We’ve had different engineers come through and look at it, and they agree it’s time to do this project. We’ve set aside that this is the LTFM project for this summer. That is where we’re spending all that money.”

To address safety concerns and work to effectively manage traffic flow, the new design of the parking lot will particularly have a one-way entrance and exit. According to Stelter’s report, “The primary entrance will feature a median that allows vehicles turning right to enter freely while accommodating left-turning traffic. This design enables two lanes of traffic to enter the lot simultaneously, reducing congestion and maintaining traffic flow on Saratoga Street.”

The new lot will also replace the failing pavement and improve drainage, in addition to the enhanced safety and traffic measures.

The new design will include a wraparound drive lane, an added bike path from Saratoga Street and a clear pedestrian walkway throughout the parking lot. Additionally, the pedestrian pathway will help prevent vehicles from cutting across the lot.

“This design is a little different than what we’ve seen in any of our other parking lots for commercial public schools,” Stelter said. “Some of our problematic areas right now are that we have cars that come in, and then they (quickly) zip across the parking lot to drop their kids off. So, when we keep that in mind, we added this pedestrian walkway right here for safety for pedestrians, but also to slow some of that traffic down, and so they’re not cutting across the parking lot as they are right now.”

With the wraparound design, there will be two lanes coming off of Saratoga Street, where drivers will have a free-right turn, again while accommodating those turning left. This will also be an initiative in hopes of lessening traffic congestion, along with the pedestrian crossing beacon that is stationed in that area.

“What will happen is they’ll (drivers) come in two lanes, and then they’ll go down to the edge. They’ll zipper together like they currently do, and then we will have the drop-off lane right there, and then the second lane there is what we’re going to call a bypass lane,” Stelter said. “So, if you happen to drop your student down at the end there, then you can zip out into the bypass lane, and then keep the flow of the traffic moving that way.”

The parking lot will also have a dedicated bike path off to the side that will allow students to just take the path right up to the school rather than trying to cross through traffic as they currently do.

The redesign will apply to just the main area of the parking lot — There will not be any changes made to the bus lanes or the playground area.

Stelter noted that her and the operations’ team have gone through a handful of different designs, with this design most likely being very close to the final. The plan is to recommend a contractor to the school board at the May 18 meeting, and there will be engineering support from Hagestrom Engineering.

The project will take place over the summer, with the completion date to be done by the second week of August, in time to welcome staff back for the new school year.

“There’s been a lot of thought, a lot of research, and a lot of looking at what other school districts are doing that has worked,” Stelter said. “This is pretty close to the final design I would say.”

The full design blueprint of the parking lot can be found on the district’s school board website on the April 20 agenda under the Director of Operations report.