JPL’s new parking garage marks a successful mission on Earth

Officials from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently celebrated with local city officials and employees the completion of a five-story, 1,450-space parking structure that has been part of the facility’s master plan for nearly 50 years.

In a Tuesday morning ribbon-cutting ceremony, JPL director Charles Elachi joked with participants that it took less time to land a rover on Mars than it did to accommodate parking on the crowded La Cañada campus.

The new $18-million structure, funded by NASA as a Construction of Facilities project, was built by San Francisco-based Swinerton Builders. It replaces an 1,100-space east Arroyo parking lot located on property JPL had leased from the city of Pasadena since 1952, according to a July 2012 article in the Valley Sun.

The lease was set to expire in July 2013, but city officials informed the lab that land would be turned into a spreading basin to allow recycled water to filter into the groundwater supply, part of a larger effort to restore the Arroyo Seco to its natural state.

Although that portion of land was leased from the city of Pasadena, the JPL facility itself is located within La Cañada Flintridge city limits. For that reason, La Cañada City Councilman Dave Spence participated in Tuesday’s celebration, gently bringing attention to that important geographic distinction in his remarks to the audience.

Employees will begin to use the new parking structure tomorrow, JPL officials reported.