With its athletic programs seeing some major successes recently, including its men’s baseball and wrestling teams winning national championships, SUNY Niagara is looking to make long-delayed investments in its athletic facilities.
The community college has eyed updating its facilities, but has only resurfaced the gym. Salvatore Durante, the VP of administration and CFO for SUNY Niagara, said that most of the sports infrastructure dates back to the Sanborn campus’ construction in 1972.
“The physical space just doesn’t accommodate them,” Durante said, with the SUNY Niagara campus hosting other sports tournaments throughout the year.
Durante said the plans presented are in the preliminary stages and were a best-case scenario. Buffalo architecture firm Azar, the designer of SUNY Niagara’s Learning Commons, created AI-generated conceptual designs for the college’s Board of Trustees this past August that could cost as much as $98 million, though that is not expected.
The first phase would be a new community recreation complex next to the existing athletics building available for student and community events, which can fit up to six wrestling mats and have space for sports teams to practice. At its biggest, it would be 110,000 square feet and cost $64.5 million.
The second phase would renovate the interior of the main athletic building, with a disused swimming pool filled in and its space turned into another gymnasium that can hold three wrestling mats and batting cages. The locker rooms would be larger, the training facilities and fitness center would double in size, with everything inside being made ADA-compliant. That at most would cost $11.24 million.
The third phase, happening much further down the line, would replace the grass of its athletic fields with synthetic turf, along with adding new bleachers and scoreboards. That would have a max cost of $21.89 million.
That phase may not happen because the men’s baseball team entered into a three-year lease to play games at Niagara Falls Sal Maglie Stadium, sharing with the Niagara Falls Americans. That team’s new owner, Jerry Puleo, has reportedly made that lease favorable for SUNY Niagara, with them having options to charge and keep revenue, sell merchandise, put their logo inside the stadium, and livestream games.
“The city wants us to continue playing there and the coaches and players love it,” Durante said. “We don’t feel the need to spend millions on new fields.”
The new facilities would be open for public use too, possibly offering memberships for its fitness space.
SUNY Niagara has reached out to the Deloitte consulting firm to handle a feasibility study for a capital campaign this coming fall, taking two to three months to finish. After that, the college can have an idea of the final cost based on how much can be raised and what they can get from the county government and SUNY.
The firm Azar can then present a final design based on what they are given, with phases one and two expected to be scaled down.
“The first step is figuring out how much is available, then designing what it can look like,” Durante said.