New GVSU Master Plan Released

[KleShreen]

Thought this was pretty interesting. GVSU released an updated master plan, which is a 10-year outlook on what the university wants to do with the school in terms of facilities and whatnot.

Of note to those of us here is the athletics section:





Looks like they plan on building a brand new Natatorium to replace the rather bad one GV already has, and then some renovations within the arena. Also pretty cool is the plan calling for indoor tennis courts, which kind of became needed after Ramblewood shut down their tennis facility, which is where GV hosted most of their matches. The plan also calls for turf and lights at the baseball and softball fields, but even Davenport has that, so it's not *that* significant, but a definite needed improvement.

Of course, the big part is the Lubbers Stadium part. Looks like they plan on renovating the existing seating, and adding what looks like possibly a second tier of seating on the east side?

If even a couple of these things actually happen, would be welcome improvements for the facilities that definitely need them. I don't know how often the master plans that are released actually turn out to be accurate, but it is fun to think about and discuss.

[Gliac_fan10]

Looks like they plan on building a brand new Natatorium to replace the rather bad one GV already has, and then some renovations within the arena.

Based on the information about the field house and the map it looks to me like the pool is going to be renovated and not demolished. It would be the offices, gymnastics/climbing room and classrooms in the middle that will be demolished which would leave the arena, pool and rec center all "free standing" buildings.

Also pretty cool is the plan calling for indoor tennis courts, which kind of became needed after Ramblewood shut down their tennis facility, which is where GV hosted most of their matches.

Interesting to see how they fit/where exactly the indoor courts will go. The only way I see it would work there is if they replaced the outdoor courts with the indoor. Which begs the question do they put outdoor courts somewhere else or not have any.

[KleShreen]

Based on the information about the field house and the map it looks to me like the pool is going to be renovated and not demolished. It would be the offices, gymnastics/climbing room and classrooms in the middle that will be demolished which would leave the arena, pool and rec center all "free standing" buildings.




Interesting to see how they fit/where exactly the indoor courts will go. The only way I see it would work there is if they replaced the outdoor courts with the indoor. Which begs the question do they put outdoor courts somewhere else or not have any.

Based on the map, it looks like they're going to renovate the current pool and keep it as, I'm guessing, a rec center/public pool, that's the purple part on the "top" of the demolished hub. But then they're constructing a brand new Natatorium, which is the top blue section. It looks like that will be taking up the grass space that is currently at the northeast corner of the arena.

The largest blue section is the indoor courts, and yea it looks like it's just going to go where the current outdoor courts are. I would guess they just won't have outdoor courts anymore. There's not really a reason to have outdoor courts if you have indoor courts, I suppose.

Edit: Here's a better look at the map with everything labeled:

The light blue is "new construction", the purple is "renovations" and the red is "demolition". I don't know if the "Fieldhouse Addition" is the addition that is already currently being constructed for wrestling, or if this is another new addition, and the current construction is included in the purple "Arena" section.

[BeachinLaker]

These are all pretty specific improvements, which tells me they're more than just "wish list" items. I think we'll actually start to see these things appear as priority donation projects on the giving page in short order. Also, these aren't improvements that you make to stay competitive in Division II...These are improvements that close the competitive facility gap for a move to D1.

[UISguy23]

GVSU moves up and the FCS just got a whole lot better. They are a football power and imo if they and Uindy move up then the OVC is gonna be a 2 horse race

[MrsThortonMelon]

GVSU moves up and the FCS just got a whole lot better. They are a football power and imo if they and Uindy move up then the OVC is gonna be a 2 horse race

What makes you think GVSU would go OVC? Missouri Valley for football and the Horizon for the rest of the sports.

[MrsThortonMelon]

These are all pretty specific improvements, which tells me they're more than just "wish list" items. I think we'll actually start to see these things appear as priority donation projects on the giving page in short order. Also, these aren't improvements that you make to stay competitive in Division II...These are improvements that close the competitive facility gap for a move to D1.

Have you seen the that gap at the FCS level? GVSU would be just fine as is. Some of these things need to be done to useful life span of the things in place IMHO. Indoor tennis could be used for lots of other things too and maybe take a little load off the Kelly?

[BeachinLaker]

What makes you think GVSU would go OVC? Missouri Valley for football and the Horizon for the rest of the sports.

Is this actually what is in the works or just a prediction?

[Brandon]

Is this actually what is in the works or just a prediction?

That would be their ideal. The OVC is not a good conference.

[KleShreen]

Is this actually what is in the works or just a prediction?

I would assume Melon's suggestion is the best case scenario, because it would put GV in essentially a GLIAC-equivalent conference for every sport besides football in terms of travel. But Detroit and Oakland are never going to let it happen.

[GV Retired Bum]

GVSU moves up and the FCS just got a whole lot better. They are a football power and imo if they and Uindy move up then the OVC is gonna be a 2 horse race

Im crying laughing right now

[UISguy23]

Im crying laughing right now

Okay so it may be a 4 team race lol but those 2 schools are pretty great at football

[yote_7]

Indoor turf fields are a huge advantage for all the sports here. Most of our peer schools cannot practice sports much during the winter, since they don't have them. The current indoor field is amazing and we are lucky to have it, but it is always in use and it is hard for us to find time slots for it.

[bigmrg74]

From what I remember of the GVSU pool, yeah, it probably needed to get upgraded back in 2000. I did a massage event at Michigan's pool, worked on the Northwestern women's swimming and diving teams for the Big Ten Women's Swimming and Diving championship back in 2016. From what I've heard from other local swimmers, Michigan has a pretty fast pool, its just that they don't have a lot of prep areas around the pool for the teams to spread out at. For instance, we had to set our tables up on an inclined ramp, and it just wasn't that great to work on that kind of surface. and we wasn't the only crew that got stuck on the ramp as well. Having space in and around the pool deck is one of the things that would be needed to be included in the new pool area. we would want to have a natatorium that local HS would love to use for having big swim meets at.

[bigmrg74]

East side stands are easily the best way to go to increase stadium capacity right now. Plus, I believe that in the past there's been plans of putting the visiting locker rooms over there either behind or under the seating there. Would help to prevent the issue of two teams having to cross each other when heading to the locker rooms. Its kinda shameful that guys can't just be cool about it, but its a passionate game, and well, preventing teams from crossing would do a lot in general in preventing issues.