Construction is scheduled to begin in October on the Dallas Arboretum’s Garland Road parking garage and will take about one year to complete. The project has been slightly scaled back from previous designs.

At a press conference Monday, updated plans revealed that the garage will have three above-ground levels instead of four. Duncan Fulton of Good Fulton & Farrell Architects, the firm in charge of the design, says projected attendance did not justify the last level, but it is possible to add it later if the need arises.

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The garage will yield 890 more parking spaces, as opposed to the initial estimate of 1,200. The lot, located next door to Kwik Kar just across from the Arboretum, is used for employee and volunteer parking, including 268 spaces, which will be lost during construction of the garage.

The project was announced at a community meeting in June, receiving a mixed response from neighbors. The plan is now in motion as the Arboretum recently requested the special use permit required to build the underground walkway, linking the garage to the new Rory Meyers Children’s Adventure Garden, which opens Sept. 21.

The new Children’s Garden is expected to increase attendance at the Arboretum, but the garage won’t be ready until fall of 2014. In the meantime, the Arboretum plans to continue using the shuttle service from the temporary lot at Gaston and Garland (where the Far West nightclub used to be), but that contract expires next June since the area is planned for redevelopment. Other temporary parking solutions include partnering with nearby businesses to provide remote parking for employees and volunteers.

The final details aren’t yet set in stone, but the price tag is “north of $20 million”, and John Armstrong, the Arboretum’s VP of property development, says that the private financing has been secured.