As the leaves lose color, final exams preoccupy students’ minds, and Thanksgiving nears, Ohio Athletics knows what it is thankful for.
The athletics department accepted an $8 million donation from Robert and Margaret Walter to build a new multipurpose center. On top of that, it has collected more than $1.3 million in additional donations.
Even though at least $1.7 million more is required to build the facility as planned, department officials say the structure will fill a great need once completed.
“I think this facility is extremely important to our campus and community,” OU Athletics Director Jim Schaus said. “If you look at other institutions like ours, it’s very common to have a large space like this that is available for recreation and classes. For some universities, they are very large field houses. (Other universities) are building more contemporary facilities that complement a student rec center.”
The multipurpose facility, which is planned to cover 74,000 square feet, will complement OU’s Ping Center, which opened in 1996 and covers 168,000 square feet across its three floors.
Between the two, Ohio’s recreation centers will be among the largest in total floor space in the Mid-American Conference, rivaled by the Fetterman Training Center at the University of Toledo and the University of Akron’s newly-built Louis and Freda Stile Athletics Field House, which is a hybrid of Ping and the planned multipurpose facility.
Akron’s 155,500 square foot field house, which was dedicated in 2004, houses a six-lane track, a regulation-size football field, an indoor golf facility and a student wellness and recreation facility. The turf-and-track portion of the building seats more than 1,000 spectators.
The Fetterman Training Center, which opened in 2010, features a 100-yard football field, basketball and volleyball courts, a long-jump pit, sprint lanes, and a golf practice area.
“I’ve been in Akron’s. I’ve been in Buffalo’s, been in three or four of them, and Akron’s is about as nice as it gets,” Ohio football coach Frank Solich said.
“I think (a multipurpose facility) helps in a lot of different ways. It helps in recruiting, it helps your current team, it helps all the teams that are in our program that would use it,” he added. “And then there’s a big help within the community itself and how it could be used.”
Schaus likened the facility to OU’s Aquatic Center, which is a hub for community involvement, being that it is the only one of its kind in the area.
Ohio Athletics administrators have said that everything from youth sports to trade shows could be held inside the center.
“An indoor facility like this, of this size and this capacity, is a great asset for our region, and I think there are a lot of things that will be utilized by the community,” Schaus said.
The university is working with the city of Athens to outline the best possible agreements for the facility’s use.
“We are in the process of negotiating a memorandum of understanding with the city,” said Becky Watts, chief of staff to OU President Roderick McDavis. “The catalyst for that was the university’s commitment to help fund the new fire trucks, but there are multiple other things on the table for discussion, and shared resources for community activities is one of them.”
jr992810@ohiou.edu
