A barrage of setbacks have marred the long-awaited opening of the Walter Fieldhouse for months, and this time inhospitable weather, delays in heating the facility and deliberation about drop-down netting will ultimately keep most students from setting foot on the facility’s artificial turf or track until Fall Semester.
Construction workers will essentially hit “pause” on its progress in early March to allow Ohio’s athletic teams, namely the football team, to take part in their spring workouts indoors. Workers will continue plugging away at the building’s exterior, but the track and netting system will remain unfinished until mid-April, with a “full-bore” opening slated for the fall, said Ryan Lombardi, Ohio University vice president for Student Affairs.
“Even doing this thing for football, they’ve been really frustrated because … it’s supposed to be open by now, right?” Lombardi said. “It’s supposed to be open for bowl practice, and none of those things have happened. We’ve never hit any of those milestones, but there’s only so much you can do with construction.”
Despite the delay, students are still going to foot their share of the fieldhouse’s bill, Lombardi said, because there are still costs associated with opening it for Athletics’ use. Student funds totaling $822,000 annually have been set aside for fieldhouse debt and maintenance, according to a previous Post article.
No new student workers will be hired to staff the facility this spring, said Mark Ferguson, OU executive director of campus recreation. Ping Center student workers will staff the facility to “provide students with opportunities to get experience in different venues,” Ferguson said.
OU is still in the process of hiring a director for the fieldhouse. Ping Center and Walter Fieldhouse staff will be “working fairly closely” once the facility is open for all student use, Ferguson said. About $35,000 of the fieldhouse’s $150,000 annual budget will be used to pay student workers, according to a previous Post article.
Ferguson also said power has been installed in the fieldhouse and that the construction crew is working to connect the facility to OU’s steam tunnels. Permanent heat should be installed by the end of the month, he said.
“That steam is directly tied to heating the facility, which affects a lot of the other processes,” he said. “In some of these frigid temperatures, (workers) are in there, and it’s cold.”
The university also decided on a netting system that will allow the track team, for example, to practice undisturbed while as many as three separate intramural games span the turf widthwise — each separated from the others by a ceiling-to-floor net. There will also be a batting cage in one of the end zones, one side of which will be outfitted for use as a golf net.
Lombardi said that the netting system stands to be one of the facility’s best assets.
“In my mind, the nets are what make it a multifunctional facility,” he said. “Otherwise it’s just a big football field with a track around it, right?”
jr992810@ohiou.edu
@Jimryan015
