KU needs another $300 million worth of development around its football stadium to create a true “gateway” to wow potential students and attract new dollars critical for the next generation, university leaders told the Journal-World.
An upscale Marriott hotel, a mix of restaurants and retailers, more than 400 new student apartments, and a unique 20,000-square-foot plaza area for outdoor entertainment are among the features that KU leaders contend will turn the area near 11th and Mississippi streets into a new year-round economic center for Lawrence.
“This results in a more prosperous KU that will lift the university and the city,” Jeff DeWitt, KU’s chief financial officer, told the Journal-World in an interview this week.
Public taxpayers, though, had better be prepared to do some of the lifting. [KUSports.com]
Northeastern University presented updates to the 262 St. Botolph Street Multipurpose Athletic Facility to the Boston Civic Design Commission — Design Committee B for review and public testimony Oct. 22. The project is intended to replace the 114-year-old Matthews Arena as a priority of Northeastern’s 10-year Institutional Master Plan, or IMP. Matthews Arena currently holds hockey and basketball games, commencement ceremonies and various community events. With the new facility, the university plans to expand its purposes through four distinct sections — an arena, a turf, a basketball court and a student recreational space.
“[The sections] don’t really fit on the site in a conventional manner, so we’ve been required to fit it on this in a stack manner, which we think is very exciting,” said Bryan Schabel, a design director at Perkins & Will, the architecture and design firm spearheading the project. [The Huntington News]
Good update from the Huntington News. Have to say, the insistence on making the arena not as much of an arena and deprioritizing the things that make it seem like an arena are raising the worry that Northeastern is going to be all Northeastern about this.https://t.co/qDqVg1WXzp
— Northeastern Hockey Blog (@NUHockeyBlog) December 11, 2024
An Ankeny developer wants to build a new $90 million sports complex that could be used year-round.
"I'm a big supporter of youth sports," said Dave Lane, the developer behind the project.
Lane is a former coach turned developer, and he's all about kids' sports. This is his dream for those kids: a $90 million nonprofit development that includes an ice hockey arena and multiple indoor and outdoor courts for growing youth sporting events. The project aims to benefit Ankeny and surrounding towns as far north as Ames.
"The uniqueness of this is that it's something that can facilitate those needs for hockey, for lacrosse, for softball, for a number of other sports," Lane said.
Lane says the huge project is set to be built on about 50 acres of farmland on the east side of I-35. It's called the I-35 Sports Park. But it's more than buildings and fields.[KCCI]
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