More on-campus parking spots will be eliminated as the intensive A. James Clark Hall construction begins at the end of this semester, officials said.

While the construction is pending authorization and the start has already been delayed, the project is expected to begin some time after May 1, said Bill Olen, Facilities Management planning and construction director.

Paint Branch Lot will officially shut down at the start of construction, said Anna McLaughlin, Department of Transportation Services assistant director.

The 184,700-square-foot building will be associated with the engineering school, Olen said. Its location will take over Paint Branch Lot, which is predominantly a visitor and employee lot with approximately 192 spaces, said David Allen, DOTS director.

The lot currently has 131 spots for visitors, with the remaining 61 spots reserved for computer, mathematical and natural sciences and engineering schools faculty and staff members, as well as other faculty members.

Although there are no students who currently park in the lot, student parking will eventually be affected, Allen said. The employees who currently park in Paint Branch lot will be required to move their vehicles to Lot 11C. Some students in Lot 11 will remain there, while others can make use of Lot 4B, which is located behind Xfinity Center, he said.

Lot 4B will be available as needed as an overflow lot for any registrant, McLaughlin said.

In addition, visitors who would have parked in Paint Branch Lot would then have to park in Lot T, which is located in an older engineering lot, Allen said. The pay stations from Paint Branch Lot will also be moved to Lot T, and the faculty and staff parking in Lot T will relocate to Lot XX1, he added.

DOTS informed these proposed movements to all of the Paint Branch Lot parkers through a detailed PowerPoint presentation.

“Parking is a problem that’s very easy to solve, you either need more space or less cars,” Allen said.

Sophomore Elizabeth Pickens said she is frustrated with the lack of parking this city has to offer.

“It’s just sad because there’s so many opportunities around here,” the history major said. “The Metro is accessible, but I intern in Annapolis, and students like me need access to their cars.”

Pickens parks in Lot 2, located near Oakland Hall and the Denton Community. Because sophomores do not have priority parking and there is limited parking near her dorm on South Campus, she said she had no choice but to park there.

But this university cannot afford to introduce more spaces, Allen said. The debts the university would collect would be too great, and it would cost more than $100 million to build a single 3,000-space parking garage, he said.

The idea to overtake Paint Branch Lot has been in the master plan — 20-year-plus projections about future building developments — since 1999, said Brenda Testa, the Department of Facilities planning director.

The site was designated for an academic science building in 2002, Testa said.

The building is supposed to cost $168 million and is mainly funded by state, campus and private donations, Olen said. The building is slated to be an iconic facility with a state-of-the-art research facility for undergraduate studies and other disciplines that use the facility, he said.

Officials expect the building to be completed in 2017, roughly two years after its construction start date. The bioengineering construction would then be in addition to the remodel of Cole Field House.

“There is a possibility that we will not get authorization to begin construction,” Olen said. “In this case, there’s a possibility that Cole Field House construction could begin first.”