Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times

A construction worker feeds wires to a co-worker while assembling a 1,200-space parking deck on Virginia Tech's campus. The $30 million project is the first parking deck to be built on campus and the second to be erected in Blacksburg.

| Tonia Moxley

tonia.moxley@roanoke.com, 381-1675

Editor's note: The number of Blacksburg parking decks has been corrected in this online Roanoke Times story. The Virginia Tech parking deck under construction off Prices Fork Road is the third such parking structure to be built in Blacksburg.

As cranes have set to work along Prices Fork Road, what for a time has been simply an annoyance to Virginia Tech drivers searching for a parking place before dashing to class or work now looks like the almost-finished parking deck it's meant to be.

The foundation and underground plumbing are completed, and the precast concrete walls are now being lifted into place.

The structure, now in phase two of a four-phase plan, is so far meeting the anticipated construction timeline, said Tech transportation spokeswoman Hilary West.

The deck, which will accommodate up to 1,200 vehicles, is scheduled to open sometime during the fall semester.

Weather permitting, crews may begin work on the Hokie stone facade sometime this month, she said.

The $30 million project is the first parking deck to be built on campus and the third to be erected in Blacksburg. Planning for it began in 2007, and it will add to the current number of about 14,000 on-campus parking spaces.

The 383-space Kent Square parking deck on Main Street opened to the public in 2005, and was constructed through a public-private partnership.

Blacksburg residents invested $2 million in that structure, which serves businesses inside the Kent Square complex, as well as downtown traffic.

The Prices Fork parking deck will replace 200 surface parking spaces, and is meant to accommodate traffic for future buildings expected to fill in the much of the rest of the sprawling asphalt lot.

The university's 20-year master development plan calls for a total of three parking decks to be built on campus, West said.

Click here to see a photo timeline and more background information on the Prices Fork parking deck.