It was bound to happen sooner or later. After years of talk, much speculation and an overworked feasibility committee, the mythical vision of a SLU arena is now becoming a reality.
‘They”ve been talking about doing this since I first came here 10 years ago. It”s going to really be a great thing for the athletic program and for SLU in general,’ said volleyball coach Marilyn Nolen.
Most of the specifics about the new arena are still up in the air, such as what kinds of facilities, other than the main arena, will be in the arena and which offices will be permanently moved there once it is opened. But what the arena immediately does right now, or at least promises to do, is help the different Billiken teams in the recruiting process.
‘We have been put at a disadvantage in recruiting from other schools that we compete with for players because they have great facilities to show off. I think that now that we are building this brand new arena it will eliminate the advantage that those teams had,’ said women”s basketball coach Jill Pizzotti.
The team that will be affected the most is the men”s basketball team because they will be moving their home games from the Savvis Center, in the heart of downtown St. Louis, to the arena at SLU, which will be in the heart of the new Grand Center revitalization project.
While the teams will not have full use of the new arena for a couple years yet, there is still a lot of excitement surrounding the project right now as well as a bit of uncertainty.
One question raised has been what happens to the Bauman-Eberhardt Center, lovingly referred to as West Pine Gym?
‘We have spent so much time in West Pine Gym. It has really been a good home for us,’ Nolen said. ‘I remember (senior) Colleen Hunter telling me one time how much she was going to miss coming to West Pine and playing everyday.’
Indeed, what will happen to the Bauman-Eberhardt Center once the arena is completed remains to be seen. But that is not the only thing that is uncertain right now.
The exact details of what the arena will be used for, and which teams use the facilities is also yet-to-be-determined.
It has also been stated that the arena will not only be used for sporting events but also as a concert venue and as a place for graduation ceremonies and other events like that.
But the most important part is that the ball has been set in motion to finally bring an on-campus arena to SLU.
