New parking lot plans moving forward at RVES
The Royal Valley Elementary School parking lot and drop off area for parents is getting a facelift.
During the USD 337 Board of Education meeting on Monday evening, the board approved a motion to put the parking lot project out for bid after reviewing a final design of the new space by HTK Architects of Topeka.
At the board’s meeting in September, members reviewed three designs submitted by HTK. Superintendent Aaric Davis shared the board’s feedback with the architects, who created a new rendering of the expanded parking lot space that was shared on Monday.
The new parking lot will include a new two-lane entrance, just west of the current entrance off of First Street. Parking lot traffic will then exit out of the lot using the former entrance.
A special angled parking area near the building will be added for parents who want to temporarily park to drop off their children or take their children into the building themselves.
The new drop-off lane will include a 10-foot to 12-foot wide raised crosswalk to increase safety for students who enter into the building from the temporary parking area.
About 30 to 40 additional parking spaces are also being added to the lot.
“I think this will accommodate more people,” Davis said. “I think this would solve a majority of issues. It increases safety.”
An alternate to the bid includes the addition of 14 staff parking spaces at the south end of the lot, as well as a new sidewalk near these spaces.
Davis said that the number of parents who drop their children off at the elementary school each school day has “grown in the last two to three years.”
“This year, every once in a while, in the afternoons there are cars sticking out in the street,” Davis said. “Last year, when there was a day when it was like 110 degrees, the line was all the way back to the funeral home on Kansas Highway 214.”
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