Leatherneck Nation

That is amazing and probably is nicer than 99% of DII stadiums and 25% of DI. I do like that they combined the two items at once even, though one was sports related and the other acedemic related, it is still brilliant as a cost effective item. I think if WIU ever want to separate the track from the football field there soon will be a good cost effective time to do this as when they have to fix the soccer field they will most likely have to start from scratch running new drainage and raising the field some while redoing the field surface. During this time they will have all equipment necessary to complete both items at once and will already be working on grading other items to fix the soccer field. It obviously would still cost them some money, but they could definitely place a track around field at this time with less effort and cost.

On the other hand they will have similar equipment doing work during the west stands improvements, but with no physical work being completed on the field it seems unlikely that they would do anything at this time. They could technically build a new track and leave the one around football field for a few years acting as a additional running surface for students and practicing until the time seemed right to remove and replace with some alternate surface such as some purple turf or something to outline the current turf.

Probably will never happen, but just interesting to think about how having long term plans and acting on items at correct times helps to save money in long run for schools.

That is a REALLY nice stadium for Div. III.
Holds 8-10k fans, which means it holds roughly what the DakotaDome (USD) holds.
Their university site for it has some great renderings: http://www.umhb.edu/masterplan/crusader-stadium

The stadium opened for business last season:



I wouldn't be surprised if we see some news on our stadium in the near future.

After looking back at the award notes on the Illinois Procurement site it appears that we may not hear much more until the end of next season even as they show that work did not begin until end of May and the have until 12/31/2015 it appears for the design work alone. I am not sure what all that completion date involves though as it says once a program study is complete WIU has the option to negotiate a contract for design and construction administration services, which I am not sure if that is included in the date or not. I guess I will not get very excited until next football season as it may take longer than anticipated to design the building.

http://www.procure.stateuniv.state.il.u ... 9384213987

Here is a picture from the tennis courts as they have started to resurface them today. Most likely will be completely done by end of the week as it looks.

New panels were installed in the scoreboard in Western Hall today as was tweeted by Tommy Bell. These look very bland in my opinion, but upon a second review it almost looks like they may light up or something odd as I see small designs in the purple area below the gold W.

ST, any chance they will be adding some info about each of these to that Campus Projects website? Would be interested in reading about the material they used on the tennis courts and if there are any features to those new panels in western hall or if they are just for looks.

WIU0812 wrote:ST, any chance they will be adding some info about each of these to that Campus Projects website? Would be interested in reading about the material they used on the tennis courts and if there are any features to those new panels in western hall or if they are just for looks.

Unfortunately stuff only gets posted if I get information about them. I haven't heard anything about those two projects outside of what's been mentioned here, but I'll ask my contact at Facilities Management to see if she knows if they'll have any info soon.

Here is the photo of the new courts and may I say they look great! If they are not going to get rid of the track they better at least make it look just like this!

Looks as though the SGA has approved some extra money to pour some new concrete near tennis courts with purple & gold color.

http://www.westerncourier.com/news/east ... f6878.html

That's a great picture of the tennis courts. It would be nice to have some bleachers on the far end so we could watch some of the tournament play. Granted that will be a while considering COVID, but we'll be hosting Northern Illinois as soon as things open up. It doesn't have to be anything huge. Even something portable that we could move around would be great. https://sightlinesbleachers.com/product ... -seats-42/