Photo by Carly Greaves
The existing PERC building will be joined by new rooftop and river facilities.
New Athletic Facilities to Be Constructed on Rooftops, in Eel River
Ely Cook
On Saturday, April 1, Manchester University president, Dave McFadden, announced that they will be building new athletic facilities by harnessing air rights. The new structures will go on top of currently existing ones.
A batting cage for baseball and softball athletes will be mounted on top of the Cunningham Academic Center. It will be a tarp-and-pole structure, and will be significantly affected by the wind, to mirror weather conditions of any outdoor ball game.
On one half of the roof of the Chinworth Center, a brand-new weight room, designed specifically for student-athletes, will be constructed. Grunts and groans from putting up weights will be piped into Chinworth to provide an encouraging soundtrack for business students.
Manchester also plans to build a multilevel track, on top of the triple-level roof of Cordier. It will be used to host home meets in the track and field team’s 2024 season.
Another feature is a pool for the swimming team, which will also be used to host home swimming meets. It will be located in the Eel River, in a specially sectioned-off area that will be treated with eco-friendly substances to clean it. This will allow the swimmers to practice on campus instead of traveling to the community pool at Manchester High School.
However, the pool will also be used by the athletic trainers for the practice of hydrotherapy, which is a type of rehab that is done in the water.
Many of the students at Manchester University have expressed their excitement for the new facilities being built, such as Jackson Kelsey, soccer player and track runner and thrower. “The addition of a new facility will solve a lot of problems a lot of student-athletes have been having, because of the availability of certain places in the PERC,” he said. “Also, being a part of the track team, a new multi-level track will make it better, because the alternative was the old gym, which was used by the basketball teams during the season. It was all-around difficult to have time in the gym that was not inconvenient.”
Former high school athlete and gym rat Edgar Cavanaugh also expressed his excitement for the new facility. “Finally!” he said. “It was so hard to get into the gym sometimes, because there would be sports teams that have the racks reserved for their lifting sessions, while me and many other non-athletes were trying to work out too.”
Overall, the students and student-athletes seem to be pleased with the new athletic facilities coming to Manchester University in the summer. The hope is that the new facilities will attract more student-athletes to come to Manchester University as well, given that the new facility will have new features for sports all around.