Tough Times or Not, UC Planning New Gym
- Release Date:Saturday, June 26, 2010
By Mike Whiteford
Charleston Gazette staff writer
The Great Recession's defiant grip might suggest the University of Charleston's construction boom is due for a lull, or at least a well-deserved respite.
For more than 10 years, UC has been finding ways to fund residence halls to house 700 students, a pharmacy school, Triana Field, a fitness center, a softball field and the revival of its football program after a 47-year dormancy. In recent months, it completed a complex of 49 student apartments and a parking garage.
Is it possible the South Ruffner school might continue to buck the tough economy and undertake yet another project - one that will cost $26 million or so?
With little fanfare, UC president Ed Welch and his associates have been making plans and raising money for a new gymnasium, which would replace the venerable Eddie King Gym, at a cost of $18.5 million. For another $7.5 million, they plan to renovate the adjoining physical education building, which contains a swimming pool, auxiliary gym and classrooms. The new fitness center would be incorporated into the complex.
"We're in the quiet phase of fund-raising,'' said Welch. "We've finalized the drawings of how it ought to look and where it will be positioned and all of those things. We continue to identify people who can be helpful. We continue to talk with them and we continue to keep score.''
And if Welch happens upon skeptics who nervously cite the economic downturn, he can fend them off with on-campus steel-and-concrete evidence that reflects his perseverance and optimism. Or as UC football coach Tony DeMeo likes to say, "If Dr. Welch had been on the Titanic, he would have thought they were just making a stop for ice.''
The proposed new gym will seat 2,000 - and about 3,000 for commencements - and will accommodate the men's and women's basketball teams and volleyball team. It will also house team weight rooms and locker rooms for all Golden Eagle sports.
Eddie King Gym, a post-World War II structure named for the former Charleston High and Morris Harvey College coach, is filled with history, beginning with George King's national scoring record of 31.2 points a game in 1950 and continuing with Jerry West's memorable sectional tournament appearance six years later. Since then, it's been home to MH/UC basketball greats Roger Hart, Bobby Wesley, Henry Dickerson, Sherry Winn, Keith Tyler, Ajamu Gaines, Lisa Lee and others.
But the old gym needs to be replaced, Welch emphasized. It has no elevators, handicap access or air-conditioning, its playing floor is dangerously thin and it's not the kind of facility that beckons to prospective student athletes.
"It's something that's critical for us to do for the campus,'' he said. "It's the one facility on campus that hasn't been touched in any real way since it was built many, many years ago. It's on the top of the priorities for capital projects.''
Plans call for the new gym floor to run north and south, or perpendicular to the Kanawha River, instead of the east-west flow of Eddie King. It will be bigger than the old one and will extend slightly into what is now the parking lot.
Welch, however, is not yet ready to talk about the amount of money raised or a timetable for the start of construction. He will be more specific later.
"When we get to a particular point in the fund-raising, we would then go public and say, 'Here's where we are, here's how many dollars we've raised, etc.,''' he said. "You talk with individuals and say, 'Would you commit yourself to this? Would you help us to get to our launching point?' And most people involved in fund-raisers tell you the launching point is somewhere between 40 and 60 percent of your goal. So we're trying to get up in that area. And we want to make sure we can fund it through gifts and pledges instead of making students pay for it through their tuition.''
Once it opens, the new building will not only accommodate athletics and commencements but concerts, speeches and other functions and will be available for public rental, so long as nothing interferes with Golden Eagle practices and games.
But much work lies ahead, the UC president concedes.
"Everyone involved in fund-raising knows this is a difficult time for capital projects,'' he said. "Many institutions are doing well, as are we, in annual fund-raising to support operations, but it's just a tough economic time for people to make major, major commitments.''
