Calvin College's New Fieldhouse Opens
A milestone in Calvin College athletics will be marked on Wednesday as the men’s and women’s basketball teams return to campus for their first games in the new Van Noord Arena.
The arena will host not just sports but a wide array of events, everything from opening Convocation, which begins the Calvin school year eachSeptember, to Commencement, which concludes the school year each May. The new arena also will host concerts, lectures, conferences, camps and other activities.
Van Noord Arena includes four full-sized basketball and volleyball courts, two fitness facilities, classrooms and staff offices, locker rooms, an athletic training room more than double the size of the former room, improved concession facilities and juice bar, a hospitality area, a spacious lobby area and a climbing wall.
"This facility is a wonderful gift to our students and this community,” said Glen Van Andel, a recreation professor emeritus who co-chaired the committee that planned the $50 million Spoelhof Fieldhouse Complex (SFC) project, which includes Van Noord Arena.
"It provides us with outstanding venues for our basketball teams and our volleyball team, but it is so much more than just a sports facility. It will allow us to take our academic and athletic programs to a new level. This facility has been dreamed about for many years.”
Van Noord Arena is just one component of the five-part SFC, and varsity athletics is just one focus of the SFC.
To meet the needs of the entire Calvin community, the completed complex includes the following:
- The 5,000-seat Van Noord Arena
- The Huizenga Tennis and Track Center
- The Venema Aquatic Center, which features a 50-meter by 25-yard pool
- The Hoogenboom Health and Recreation Center, a significant renovation of the old Calvin Fieldhouse
- The Marian Hoogenboom Health Services, the new home for student health services.
To read the entire story, visit: https://www.calvin.edu/news/2008-09/SFC-opening/
