Facility projects at Yale, SHU on schedule
The discussions were likely detailed and meticulous as Yale University’s athletic department received approval to build a new field house at Reese Stadium, conduct renovations at Gales Ferry Boathouse Yale Field and improve the lighting at John J. Lee Amphitheater. It seems a safe assumption, however, that the topic of the campus being shut down during a global pandemic was not among the conversations.
While there were some anxious moments when officials were understandably concerned about the progress of approved capital projects during unprecedented times, the work has either been finished or still on the same timetable.
“As of right now, everything has been on schedule,” Yale Director of Athletics Vicky Chun said. “When COVID hit and the school shut down, everything was halted for capital projects. Once it was deemed OK to go back in, then everything went back to what you say ‘normal.’ In fact, because the school is closed by capital projects are going on, there is no one there to use the facilities so they are able to go in and get quite a bit of work done.”
The locker rooms and bathrooms have been updated at the Gales Ferry Boathouse, home of Yale’s powerhouse men’s rowing program. Other improvements were also wrapped up.
Complaints of the quality
of lighting by television crews filming games inside Lee Amphitheater did not fall on deaf ears. When there are games to be televised inside the home of Yale’s women’s volleyball and men’s and women’s basketball programs, the images will be much improved.
“The success with the teams in JLA, there is a lot of ESPN broadcasts and it always had that yellow tint so now it is gone,” Chun said. “We just basically updated the interior lighting.”
Construction at Reese Stadium, site of soccer and lacrosse practices and games, and Yale Field remains on schedule.
“I am estimated to complete [work at Reese Stadium by] May 2021,” Chun said. “There was probably a slight delay but now we have picked up time. My experience with new buildings, it is a much smoother project than if you are renovating it. That is going full steam ahead.
“Yale Field, that is to complete renovations of the facades and structure. We were worried about the integrity and we also wanted to bring it back to its historical state and so that is a go as well.”
Chun said the plan has always been to be able to hold events at Reese Stadium and Yale Field during the construction process so the baseball and lacrosse teams won’t need to find places to play home games if the spring season starts on time.
There are more pressing concerns than the progress of construction projects due to COVID-19 but still, Chun knows things could have had a much different timetable.
“I know we are very fortunate to be able to continue with our projects with everything that is kind of going on in the world,” Chun said. “It’s something that I know our department has really appreciated.”
Chun has also been impressed with the resiliency of her staff dealing with constantly changing circumstances.
“We are still really optimistic and just trying to plan for almost every single scenario and we are not getting down when it is blown up in a day,” Chun said. “We’ve made all kinds of plans and we are going to continue to until we can implement it and we get to compete again but everybody’s understanding of where we are at so now it is zoom and really trying to stay connected. When you are in athletics, you tend to be a bit social so that has been the most difficult part.”
Sacred Heart’s plan to have a new hockey arena built by 2022 remains on schedule. There was a different set of challenges for the university to contend with.
“Every sport is doing conditioning in some way, shape or form so from that perspective, we have made some pretty significant changes,” Sacred Heart Deputy Director of Athletics Charlie Dowd said. “We actually moved a portion of our weight room upstairs at the Pitt Center to facilitate having more people work out at the same time. Strength and conditioning, we’ve instituted protocols to make sure that we are as safe and sanitary as possible including no locker room usage, no showers, a laundry system in place to ensure the kids are wearing clean clothes but it is just not traditional, you drop them off outside, you pick them up outside. We have gone through an awful lot of variations to make sure that we are doing the best to keep people safe.”