Fresno City College's new parking garage will provide 850 additional spaces. Photo by Ben Hensley.

Fresno City College staff and students, city officials and multiple media outlets were present Wednesday for the long-awaited unveiling of the new parking structure located between Weldon and Cambridge avenues, adjacent to the College Welcome Center.

The five-story parking structure adds more than 850 new parking spaces, along with 40 electric vehicle charging stations to the campus. It also adds an additional 126 spaces adjacent to the structure.

The addition of the spaces aims to increase the availability of parking at the college, which according to both former and current students and staff, has been of dire concern for well over 30 years.

The project was funded in June 2016 when voters passed a Measure C bond providing the State Center Community College District (SCCCD) with nearly $500 million for use in improvement projects.

“When we first passed Measure C all of the allotment and the allocation for certain things wasn’t quite in alignment,” said SCCCD Chancellor Carole Goldsmith. “So I want to thank the trustees and the former chancellors who were here that allowed us to move things around so we could build what the community wanted.

Fresno City College secured $20 million for the construction of the parking structure – which cost a total of $18.3 million.

Goldsmith said that initially, the college had planned to expand parking lots, rather than build an entirely new structure. Following consultation with the city, students and other entities, the college decided a structure would be the appropriate alleviation of parking woes on campus.

Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer commented that parking around the campus has historically been an issue not only for students, but for local residents as well. Several neighborhoods in the surrounding area feature city-installed no parking signs in front of residences. Others have required residents to display a parking permit to allow them to park at their homes.

“This will definitely alleviate that problem and that congestion for some of our neighborhoods,” Dyer said. “It is more than a building. It is more than a parking stall. It is foundational and it is transformational for people who attend Fresno City College.”

The completion of the project comes two years after the initial groundbreaking, which took place in October 2020.

“Parking has been an issue for faculty and students for many decades,” said Fresno City Council President Nelson Esparza “But when you take a step back and really evaluate, I think that’s really a testament to how ingrained and integrated this college really is within the community at large.”

In addition to the parking additions at Fresno City College, the entire SCCCD district is expanding on many of their sites and improving others; across the street from the newly opened parking structure construction on a new science building is underway, targeted for completion in 2024.

Multiple projects are also in progress throughout the district’s other three campuses, Clovis Community College, Reedley College and Madera College.

“This is what happens when community comes together and really tries to do what’s right,” Goldsmith said. “To the voters of Measure C, thank you so much for voting for this project…We are delivering on those promises and we will continue to deliver the promises so we can continue to transform lives through education.”