photo by: Bremen Keasey/Journal-World

Lot 97 outside of David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium, taken on Dec. 3, 2025. The parking lot is one of three that will close permanently just east of the stadium as part of construction for the Gateway District project.

Multiple parking lots around KU’s campus will close permanently as construction for the second phase of the school’s Gateway District will start later this month.

The school shared in an email to students, staff and faculty that parking lots 92, 94 and 97 — three lots located just east of David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium — will be closing permanently. If any vehicles are in those lots after Dec. 15, they will be towed, and the university said those who use the lots must ensure their vehicles are removed by then.

According to the email, those three lots, which are coded as yellow zone parking lots, are primarily used as “overflow parking from nearby residence halls and student day parking.” Students in the residence halls most affected by the closure of the lots have received information from the university that “identifie(d) additional parking options.”

The email acknowledged that closing parking lots can “create challenges in daily routines” and apologized for the inconvenience, and it added that KU is “committed to developing parking solutions to meet campus demand in the coming years.”

The Journal-World spoke with several KU students this afternoon about the future closure of the lots. All had said they had heard from the school about the impending closures, but they had a mixed view of how it would impact them.

One student said she would not be using her car next semester so it doesn’t impact her, but she added many of her friends lived close enough to be able to walk. Another student said the closure “sucks” because it was a convenient parking lot for her.

Trey Alberty, a senior at KU, said that he used the lot “90% of the time” because it was cheaper than parking at the HERE Apartment complex’s garage where he lived. He was considering buying a different parking pass — at either HERE or with KU — depending on the price.

KU Transportation said it will take “several steps” to accommodate the loss of those parking options, including:

•Converting 30 “red zone” spaces — available to faculty and staff — into “yellow zone” spaces at parking lot 91, which sits just north of the Spencer Museum of Art, 1301 Mississippi St.

•Creating a new lot north of 11th Street between Mississippi Street and Illinois Streets for overflow from Gertrude Sellards Pearson and Corbin halls. That lot was previously where construction trailers sat during the reconstruction of the stadium.

The school noted in its email that yellow zone parking would remain available in lots on the west side of the stadium and also encouraged yellow permit holders to “explore park and ride options” in larger yellow lots in the campus’s West District, saying bus routes can bring riders to Jayhawk Boulevard in 10 to 20 minutes.

Construction for the next phase of the Gateway District will start with the demolition and reconstruction of the east grandstand, as the Journal-World reported. Officials hope the lower bowl of the east side will open to seating by the 2026 football season.

The entirety of the $300 million second phase plans to add a 162-room hotel, 443 beds of student housing, 43,000 square feet of retail, restaurant and office space, and approximately 1,000 parking spaces that will be in a mix of underground parking garages and new surface parking lots. Those would be built to the east of the stadium — on the lots that need to be vacated.

photo by: Bremen Keasey/Journal-World

Lot 94 just east of David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium on Dec. 3, 2025. The lot is one of three parking lots that will be permanently closed in mid-December due to the second phase of construction for KU’s Gateway District project.