MSU President's column for Traill County Tribune
August 29, 2015
HPER facility expansion makes room for re-purposing and renovating of existing space
The current 17,000 sq. ft. Health, Physical Education, and Recreation (HPER) facility expansion project, which is comprised of three building additions, will provide new classroom and office space, opening up some space previously occupied in the 1960 vintage Lewy Lee Fieldhouse. This has paved the way for Mayville State University to initiate a Lewy Lee Fieldhouse renovation as part of its master plan goals and objectives. The main goal of the renovation is to provide more appropriate space, which can directly affect student recruitment and retention.
The MSU strategic plan encourages enrollment growth through a number of means, including recruitment and retention of additional student athletes. The number of student athletes and HPER majors on campus has increased significantly in the last three years. The football program, for example, has 120 to 130 student athletes this fall. The current locker room facilities are inadequate to provide for this number of students, and the Old Gym basement locker room which accommodated thirty athletes was eliminated when the building was razed in June of 2015.
This makes providing new locker room space a high priority. A football locker room project began in July. Two thousand eight hundred sq. ft. of space on the north side of the Lewy Lee Fieldhouse that had previously been office and classroom space is being transformed into a modern football locker room. The space will be converted to provide a toilet room, showers, lockers, and a team gathering area. The construction upgrades include mechanical, electrical, and plumbing improvements and code upgrades. The new locker room will be air conditioned, and the new Comet blue impact rubber flooring in the meeting area will feature Mayville State’s “Action M” logo.
The team hopes to be in the new locker room by the end of October or early November. The project will allow the team to have locker room space in one area, rather than in multiple areas of the Fieldhouse, as has been the case in recent years.
JLG Architecture designed the project and is overseeing the construction. The contractors for the project are Structures, Inc., Grand Forks, N.D., and Precision Plumbing and Precision Electric, both of Mayville, N.D. The $600,000 project is financed with State Deferred Maintenance appropriation funds and also with campus tuition reserve funds.
When the HPER facility expansion project is completed in March of 2016 and the new building space is occupied, even more of the existing pre-project space will be opened up, renovated, and re-purposed. This renovation in the Lewy Lee Fieldhouse, the HPER facility expansion, the recent teacher education division addition, and Agassiz Hall renovation demonstrate the commitment to eliminate deferred maintenance and campus and provide up-to-date buildings for students and staff. We are grateful for the opportunity to make these improvements.
Photo captions:
Top: The north side of the Lewy Lee Fieldhouse will look different once the football locker room project is complete.
Bottom: New plumbing has been installed to accommodate a shower room in the new football locker room.