Rockford Construction Co. Project Manager Pete Michell, left, and Integrated Architecture EVP Mike Corby, right, credited a collaborative approach for helping the Aquinas College Sturrus Sports and Fitness Center project succeed in taking a drab old building and transforming it into an attractive new campus facility. PHOTO: JOE BOOMGAARD

By Joe Boomgaard | MiBiz
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GRAND RAPIDS — Those who remember Aquinas College’s dark old fieldhouse, a relic from 1969, would hardly recognize the Sturrus Sports and Fitness Center as the same building, but in fact the project was a renovation, not a new construction.

“This is one of the few projects where we have people that just can’t believe it when we tell them that this is actually the old building. They say there’s no way you guys could have done that,” said Mike Corby, EVP of Integrated Architecture.

The sports complex project dates back a few years and was initially planned as one $12 million undertaking until a major recession got in the way. Aquinas resurrected the plans in 2009, opting to break the project into two phases. Phase I, which was completed in September 2010, involved renovating the old fieldhouse facility, albeit not in following with the original plans.

The revised project still includes a new fitness center, Aquinas’ sports hall of fame, a new main competition arena with telescopic bleacher seating and mezzanine, an athletic training facility, three new classrooms, locker rooms, two elevators and a Saints room for events, with limited conference space and views of the arena and future multipurpose center coming in the second phase.

“The early design, everyone loved it, but it wasn’t in the cost parameters. When it had to change, they were reluctant to give it up. They had a fear that it would be too small and not work out, but we did some 3-D modeling to show them (it would surpass their expectations),” Corby said. “I remember President Ed Balog asking me, once this was all going on, ‘Tell me this design, that you think it’s the right design.’ I said it will work out great.”

“It’s like when you give someone a Christmas present and then take it away and they think they’re getting less, but this is not less,” said Pete Michell, project manager for Rockford Construction Co. “People are fired up about this. They’re so excited to see it. We almost doubled usable square feet within the same footprint.”

The revisions were no easy task. Integrated basically had to keep within the fixed dimensions of the existing box, which meant shrinking the size of the gym, while adding a concourse and increasing seating capacity. The solution was to spin the court 90 degrees from its previous orientation and to let no space go unused. For example, storage areas were tucked in all around the gymnasium, including under the floor of some of the upper bleachers.

“Aquinas wanted to keep the building as not just an athletic or convocation facility. They wanted it to be part of the campus life in general. So we added classrooms up front and added a mezzanine in the front and back, as well as a fitness center,” Corby said. “We worked together to figure out how to optimize it. The biggest piece of the puzzle was the arena and figuring out how to make that functional. …One of the true benefits of having construction and design involved from the beginning was to work together to solve the challenge.”

The addition to the building for offices was added along Fulton Street so it would have an impact from the road, Corby said. Additional volume was also added to the facility’s lobby.

“We wanted to create a more inviting sense of entry and more dramatic element to the Fulton Street side,” he said.

The concourse area features low-maintenance, high-durability wood finishes mixed with Aquinas sports history displays, as well as warm colors. Crews also worked carefully not to damage the existing cement floors.

“We got lucky,” Corby said. “We were able to get good use out of something that we would have had to rip up and start from scratch.”

The team decided to keep the locker rooms in their existing location under the gym floor. Originally, they had planned to gut the area and start from scratch but worked together to find a more cost effective solution.

Michell said the crews had many surprises in the construction process, including locating a stairway in the basement that was originally intended to provide access to a pool that was never built.

He expects the project to at least meet LEED requirements for certification, especially because of the points garnered from a building reuse project. Other green building attributes include low-VOC finishes, high recycled content, FSC-certified woods for the gym floor and energy efficient HVAC systems. More noticeably, the new design called for a drastic increase in natural lighting compared to the former facility.

“It didn’t feel like we gave up anything,” Corby said of the revised design for the project. “Bottom line, this project epitomizes good dialogue between a construction company, the designer and the owner. We were able to evaluate options quickly and decide on the best way to move forward,” Corby said.

Both Integrated and Rockford are involved in the planning stages of the second phase of the project, which involves a multipurpose center with a 200-meter competition track, practice areas for baseball, softball, soccer and lacrosse, courts for intramural sports and spectator seating for 300.