New (Different) Wrestling Facility
- Thread starter ST8TAILG8R
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Didnt all that land out West belong to Jensen? (Bball facility, etc)?AIA’s new facility in waukee looks like it’s going to be unreal, but it’s still crazy that the Fieldhouse is less than 10 years old. I assume it’s a way for Jensen to kick a little more into ISU athletics- does anyone know what the value of the building actually is? Is $15Ma good deal for us?
“The metal for some of the chairs came from Yankee Stadium. The Fieldhouse was modeled after several facilities at places such as Duke and Butler.”
New sports facility opens in West Ames
Young basketball and volleyball players have a new facility for practice and play.www.amestrib.com
It is a nice looking place...I also wonder if the AAU game has grown/changed so much in the last 10 years moving to the metro could make more sense.....and of course being able to get out of this building with ISU buying makes it easier
I’m curious on the $15m price. If I remember correctly Jensen retained the land that the basketball facility was built on and had a long term lease to the athletic department (I’d guess the same was true for the tennis, soon to be volleyball facility). I wonder if this price includes the athletic department buying the land all three buildings are on as well as the building that will become the wrestling facility.
I was pretty lucky as hs wrestler my best friend’s family had a great sauna at his house I’d use sometimes. Not always just to cut weight, but it was an easy way and once I did it right after school for a dual weigh in. You could really stretch out some aches and pains in there.
The similarities to State Gym are uncanny. All the way down to the track. Also, if it's a completely new structure, 'brick' is one of the most costly facing materials. Kudos to them to retain this type of Architectural history, but with a very unique footprint.
For those that don’t know, this building is the All Iowa Attack Fieldhouse that is next to the Sukup Basketball Facility and the ISU Tennis, soon to be Volleyball, practice facility. Looks to be pretty similar in square footage to the Sukup. I would guess a not insignificant portion of the $15m the athletic department is putting in is for the land that the three buildings are on. Because I believe the athletic department has had a long term lease in place with Jensen because he/his company retained ownership of the land when ISU built those practice facilities.
The Sukup Basketball Facility cost $8m to construct, which included interior finishing. They are similar buildings in terms of square footage, the Sukup was built a while ago so costs have gone up, and the exterior finishing on the All Iowa Fieldhouse is quite a bit nicer.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but when i was at ISU. I was friends with the baseball club president and VP. JP sits down with all the athletic clubs pretty much discussing ways the AD can help out. Well, he was pretty upfront with them at baseball will probably never come back. In fact the one sport ISU has eye'd up in the past was Hockey. The AD actually has some contingency plans if they were to add hockey. Mostly around expanding the ISU Ice arena adding a practice rink and building on to the locker rooms. If a male sport is added it sounds like to them that hockey would be that sport. ISU has a very large club following and won something like 18 club hockey final fours.
I don’t even like hockey, but agree this should be the next sport added.
I think that was the line of thinking after the proposed practice facility attached to Hilton. At the time that facility/addition was out of our budget and the Sukup was a more bang for your buck solution. However, with there very likely being a renovation to Hilton in the next few years that won’t include a practice facility addition and there now being three sports practice facilities next to each other in west Ames, a renovation or addition to the Sukup would be much more likely at some point than a different facility.
This is why I hate this new era. We as fans have to decide to pay players or to the faculties for the players.
State Gym is just a really good design aesthetic for ISU sports, especially since so many buildings on the ISU campus have that Gregorian (I think that's what it calls IIRC?) design to them. Didn't realize this was an existing building, which makes this a really good purchase by the AD.
My son does AIA in Ames this year for the first year - the boys all practice in a building right next to this one. Basically the Jensen building was just for the girls. Most of the boys play in DSM, so I don't know maybe they'll ship their whole operation down to Waukee.
Quite frankly any expenditure on something like this I think is foolish. I'm sure this will be really nice. But I'm sure the top wrestlers would love the 5 million the fans are putting in to this would go to them instead of another building.
I view the facilities race as paying the players, just paying them in a different way.
I get the spend money on the athletes take. But this to me is a little more sustainable, only 25% from fans and it will probably be the home for the foreseeable future. When an athlete visits they will know that Iowa State is serious about wrestling. Hang replica banners to the Hilton ones and hopefully we get on track to hang more