Parking Changes Begin Saturday at Salem Hospital

Salem-News.com

(SALEM) - Beginning Saturday, the Oak and Capitol Street SE parking lot at Salem Hospital will close. Patients and visitors to the hospital campus should use the parking garage and shuttle service as an alternative. The free shuttle is available weekdays from 6:00 AM to 8:30 PM and on weekends from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM Patients and visitors with mobility impairments are encouraged to use the free valet-parking service, available weekdays, 6:00 AM to 8:30 PM. The lot that is closing sits between the Family Birth Center and the remaining parking garage. Many people currently use a short cut through the parking lot to travel between the parking garage and several campus buildings. Since the closure will eliminate that short cut, the hospital has built a covered walkway on the east side of Capitol Street to support safe travel through the campus. The closure of this parking lot is necessary in order to straighten Capitol Street SE and to begin the development of the underground parking, and adjacent parking lot, that will provide additional parking when the new patient tower opens in early 2009. Demolition of the closed parking garage is coming to an end. Crews plan to have the demolition of the building completed by the end of the week. It will then take about two weeks for the debris to be sorted and transported to recycling facilities. The parking garage is being demolished to make way for a new patient-care tower. Because of the cost of construction, a complete replacement of the Winter Street hospital is not feasible. The safest and most economical location for patient care is to build the new patient tower at the site of the now-closed parking garage, directly across the street from the hospital.