When the MSU community returns to campus for the spring semester, there could be up to 1,000 people trying to find a new place to park.

In January crews will begin an 18- to 20-month, $22 million process that will tear down and build a new Shaw parking garage. The structure is located on Shaw Lane next to the MSU-Detroit College of Law Building.

The structure currently provides 1,000 parking spots to students, faculty, staff and visitors, and when completed, the new ramp will hold 1,200 cars. It will also continue to offer both permit parking and paid commuter parking.

Also included in the new facility will be the main Capital Area Transportation Authority transfer center, which will take the place of the current CATA stop at Shaw and Farm lanes.

Michael Rice, deputy chief in charge of parking for the MSU police, said the destruction of the current structure may have a ripple effect throughout campus.

“Everyone will be trying to find another place to park that is as close as possible to where they need to be,” Rice said.

“The people coming from Shaw will be taking spots away from people who are used to parking in the other lots.”

Rice said this process may force people to park in lots further from the center of campus.

“There are enough spaces on campus for everyone,” he said. “Everyone will basically just have to park a little further than they are used to.”

Rice predicts that the new garage located behind the Communication Arts and Sciences Building, as well as the Wharton Center ramp and Lot 89 at Farm Lane and Mount Hope Road, will pick up a lot of the slack from the Shaw garage.

But some MSU-DCL and business students and faculty members who use the Shaw ramp on a regular basis are not satisfied with the suggestions of other places to park.

“Parking is already a sore spot with me because it is such an inconvenience,” said Lindsey Wilson, a second-year MSU-DCL law student. “This just adds to the confusion and it will make it harder to find spots that are already difficult to find.”

Nicole Redick does clerical work in the Office of Development and Alumni Relations at the MSU-DCL Building and wasn’t aware the garage is coming down. Five months pregnant, she is concerned she won’t have anywhere to park that is close enough to the office.

“I guess I will have to leave 45 minutes earlier or something so that I can find a spot at the Wharton Center,” she said.

“Everyone from here will want to park there and that is what it will take to find a spot.”

DCL students and staff are not the only people who are going to be affected by the construction.

“I guess it is a good idea for them to increase the number of spots in the garage but it just doesn’t seem like it is the appropriate time to do it,” said Shingirirai Rukuni, a manufacturing engineering and management senior.

“They raised the prices, it is already difficult to find a spot and now they are starting a two-year project to rebuild one of the only places that people who have classes in this part of campus can park. That just seems like a very unwise decision.”