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YSU favors site for $10M sports facility
TweetBy Harold Gwin
A tentative timetable shows the center under construction in mid-2010.
YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown State University is looking to put its first indoor sports training facility, with a $10 million price tag, on the north side of campus.
An existing outdoor track just east of Elm Street and south of the Madison Avenue Expressway is the preferred location, according to a project update presented to the YSU Board of Trustees.
The WATTS (Watson And Tressel Training Site) Center has been a reality since the university announced in mid-2007 that former YSU head football coach Jim Tressel and his wife, Ellen, and her parents, Frank and Norma Watson, had pledged to give the university $1 million to help build an indoor practice field.
The WATTS Center has been undergoing design and revisions since then, and the recommended plan presented recently to the board of trustees by Ron Strollo, YSU executive director of athletics, shows a $10 million facility that will house a full-size indoor football field, a 300-meter indoor track, locker rooms and related facilities in a 120,200-square-foot package.
It’s a central location, close to Stambaugh Stadium, and will be used by the university’s intercollegiate baseball, football, soccer, softball and track teams as well as for student recreation and intramural sports and perhaps the community, Strollo said in his report.
Some new outdoor recreation facilities for softball and soccer would come later.
The trustees have already given tentative approval to the project. The board’s recent vote to borrow $47 million through the sale of bonds for a variety of campus improvement projects shows the WATTS Center on the project list, with $5 million earmarked for the facility.
That list shows construction could begin in July 2010 with completion in early 2011.
The rest of the financing will come from philanthropic gifts, headed by the $1 million from the Tressel and Watson families.
Youngstown native Edward J. DeBartolo Jr. has contributed $750,000 to the project and total gifts so far have reached $3 million, with $2 million yet to be raised, according to Strollo.
The athletics department will contribute $250,000 a year to help pay the debt service on the $5 million in bond funds earmarked for the project.
There are no plans to increase any student fees to help pay for the facility, university officials have said.
Strollo told the trustees that the university looked at three options for the center on four potential sites.
Option one called for only a football field under roof while another option called for a half-sized football field under roof. The third option — a full-size football field, a 300-meter track and other amenities — is the one being recommended, he said.
The possible sites, beyond the one recommended, included building the center on the west side of Fifth Avenue across from Stambaugh Stadium, putting it where existing tennis courts are located just west of Elm Street and south of the Madison Avenue Expressway and even using an inflatable structure to be erected over Beede Field in the stadium itself.
When the project was first announced, David C. Sweet, YSU president, said YSU athletic teams were at a distinct competitive disadvantage because of Youngstown’s northern climate, which limits outdoor practice time and the center would correct that problem.
Strollo has said that the facility is critical for the growth of YSU’s football program in terms of raising its level of competitiveness and ability to recruit student-athletes.
gwin@vindy.com
Comments
So they can build a new sports complex that only a few use, but there is no money to build a new Lincoln deck which EVERYONE uses!
Get real kid. Stop being lazy and park in one of the surface lots on 5th or walk across campus and park in the monster Wick Avenue Deck.
Anyways you got over a year and a half left before you have to worry about it.
Just have to love it.
Uh, the Wick deck fills up too. This has nothing to do with being lazy, its about priorities for the campus.
I'M ALL FOR THE PRACTICE FILED--SPORTS TEAMS BRING IN MONEY--but I'd like to see some of that 47 million they're talking about upgrading or at least cleaning existing buildings and classrooms--not to mention the bathrooms--I've never seen such a filthy falling apart campus. And how about the busted sidewalks outside the fifth avenue entrance to DeBartolo? Eddie's $750k should be used to repair the building that bears his family name.
I have to agree with ytownsteelman - they can't throw money at Athletics fast enough, while there's a hiring freeze on, a budget crunch (everywhere BUT athletics), crumbling infrastructure, and so on. Just a few days ago YSU reported plans to knock down the Lincoln Ave. deck, while acknowledging that it's structurally sound, and while acknowledging that they were going to lose about 900 parking slots that they had no idea what to do about.
The bottom line is - IS the whole point of having a college the athletics, or the academics?
The money for the athletics is separate from what we are talking about here. YSU doesn't have an athletic charge per student like many colleges do to fund their athletic depts!
YSU has put millions into the academic portion of the Univeristy, and now you folks have to bellyache about something that will be 40% funded by private donations!
Ridiculous.
valleyred, take off your rose colored glasses and look around the YSU campus. Look at it like a parent deciding where to send their child for the furthering of said child's education. There's litter, crumbled concrete, doors that don't close properly, sidewalks out of kilter, leaky pipes in many of the buildings, leaky roofs in some of the buildings, and more. And that's before you get to the old, outdated, or broken equipment they'll be 'using.' Academics at YSU are falling behind, thanks to Taft's "If it ain't Ohio State, it ain't squat" attitude, and Strickland's not much better. If YSU has the funds to put up a new indoor sports training facility, they should have the funds to pick up the doggone trash blowing around the campus, repair the concrete, and things of that nature. If not, then their priorities are seriously out of touch with reality.
And you never did answer - what's the reason the university exists in the first place? For football, basketball, and the other sports? I know athletics has its own money. Did you know that every candy, snacks, soft drink, and so on, vending machine on campus funds athletics? That's one little way they fund themselves.
For the record, I'm a YSU alumnus. I'm sure I'll be hit up to help fund that 40% that's supposed to be private donations. That 40% doesn't bother me at all. It's the 60% that's NOT private donations. Where does THAT come from?
Why don't you read the article.. The AD will pay off $5 million in bonds to pay off the rest of the WATTS Center.
Tressel-Debartolo-and Others donated this money for THIS facility.
I am sorry the Beeghly School of Education and/or the soon to be built Williamson College of Business is not enough for you...
I can't wait to go to class in Williamson in two years!
valleyred, why don't YOU read the article? Or maybe you should pay attention in class. It says: "The athletics department will contribute $250,000 a year to help pay the debt service on the $5 million in bond funds earmarked for the project."
Got that? The AD will contribute $250K per year to help pay off the debt service on the 5 million. They're not paying off the $5 million.
As for the condition of the campus, maybe you should see more of it than just what's in your narrow little rut. The great majority of YSU's students drive to the campus and park as close as humanly possible to their class, make a beeline directly to the class(es) and directly back to their car, and they hurry away. They've never been in the buildings that don't pertain to their field of study, and can't imagine a reason to go there. Tell me I'm wrong - you can't.
hey vindy, i would like to see the complete list of projects the 47 million is going to buy. this would give us a more complete view than the last two articles about parking and the practice facility.
Ok... it's GREAT they built Beeghly education a few years back and are starting to build the new Williamson... but how about the piece of poop known as Phelps? Fedor? Cushwa looks like crap. They've remodeled some of the Debartolo classrooms... but that's about it. Even the center of campus, Kilcawly, looks like garbage. They remodeled the one wing with a TACKY vintage look, horrible idea.
NOBS is totally right. I graduated in 2003 and every once in awhile I take a walk around campus and I'm horrified at the conditions of everything. It's all dirty and busted.