An underground storm water detention area completed on the corner of Alumni and University Drive is the first storage site constructed to reduce water collection on south campus.

The almost $12 million project is scheduled to finish another detention area on Nicholasville Road in the next few weeks, said Keith Ingram, project manager for UK’s Capital Project Management Department.

A grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency funded 75 percent of the project, Ingram said, and UK contributed the other 25 percent in the form of property across from the senior citizen center that was dedicated to capturing storm water and will not be resold.

The construction project is capturing storm water runoff from the Arboretum that runs along Nicholasville Road, Ingram said, and will hold it in the storage areas to be released gradually so Nicholasville Road is not flooded.

Across from the senior citizen center, a stream in the fields will be redirected so that the space can become less of a “meandering wetlands,” Ingram said, and be used as a green space for campus organizations’ events.

Construction on Alumni Drive began on April 16, Ingram said, and wrapped on Aug. 15 with some landscaping left unfinished, Ingram said.

The Black Lot, which will be closed after football season ends, will also hold a large underground storage area, Ingram said. The area above ground will become another green space, which Ingram posited could be used by tailgaters.

Ingram said the only parking losses will happen when that lot is retired.

The FEMA grant requirements expire in Sept. 2015, but depending on weather, the construction should be finished in May, Ingram said.

“I think it’ll become a nicer area for students to be in,” Ingram said. “We’re losing more and more of those (green spaces), little by little, and it’s nice to have those spaces to use.”