4/4/97

ATHENS, Ohio -- Grover Center will close its doors June 10 to allow workers to remodel half the gymnasium floor into a temporary stage and "auditorium" for university events as the Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium undergoes a 16-month, $5.8 million renovation.

The remodeling of the gym floor is a prelude to a full-scale $24.5 million renovation and addition to Grover which will double the size of the 100,000-square-foot building, consolidate the six schools of the College of Health and Human Services into one building, and provide larger space for the employee fitness program, Wellworks, currently housed in The Tower at Peden Stadium.

"We are bringing Alumni Memorial Auditorium up to a standard where it will better serve the university and the community," said Vice President for Administration Gary North. "We have already replaced Grover with a state-of-the-art Ping Recreation Center. It is certainly fortunate that the city has moved forward with a recreation facility that will provide an alternative for those who used Grover."

The Athens community recreation center is expected to open in late 1998, according to Mayor Ric Abel's office.

Starting in June, workers will construct a full stage with battens, lighting, instruments, rigging and drapery on the eastern third of the Grover Center gymnasium floor and set up 750 folding chairs. When necessary, an additional 650 chairs can be added on the remaining floor space to allow Grover to stage most of the more than 260 events that are held annually in Memorial Auditorium, according to Gretchen Stephens, director of public occasions.

Most of the events held in Alumni Memorial Auditorium will be held in Grover, but the Honors Convocation will take place in the Convocation Center, some of the Peforming Arts Series performances will be in the First Methodist Church, 2 S. College St., and the University Program Council's Film Series has yet to find a home, according to Stephens. Alumni Memorial Auditorium is scheduled to reopen spring quarter of 1999.

On the western half of the Grover Center basketball floor, two basketball courts will continue to serve as space for physical education classes and elective courses such as basketball and volleyball after the remodeling, but will no longer be available to the campus and community for basketball, according to Keith Ernce, director of the School of Recreation and Sport Sciences.

After June, the only recreation area in Grover open to the campus and community will be five racquetball courts, available until the year 2000. Locker rental will continue until late 1998, when the first phase of construction begins on an addition to the southern side of Grover on the current site of the baseball field.

Renovation and additions to the existing Grover Center space will begin in 2000 and be completed by 2002, according to Director of Facilities Planning John Kotowski.

Three floors of offices and classrooms will be constructed on the eastern half of the gym floor, and current classrooms and offices will be remodeled.

University trustees are to review plans at their April 11-12 meeting for an athletic mall that will provide a softball facility and eventually a 1,500-seat baseball stadium on the current football practice field west of the Convocation Center by spring 1998.

College of Health and Human Services Dean Barbara Chapman said consolidating the six schools of the college under one roof has been a longtime goal.

The School of Human and Consumer Sciences is currently in Tupper Hall, Nursing is in McCracken, Physical Therapy is in the Convocation Center, Hearing and Speech Sciences and its clinic is in Lindley Hall, Health Sciences is in the Tower, Recreation and Sport Sciences is in Grover, and the dean's office is in Grosvenor Hall.

Grover was built for $2 million and named for Brandon T. Grover, a 1919 university graduate who served as the university's head basketball coach and assistant to the athletic director from 1923 to 1938. He became director of public relations in 1938 and assistant to the president in 1943.

Grover opened its doors Dec. 1, 1960 with a basketball game between NCAA champion Ohio State and the Bobcats, the defending Mid-American Conference champions. The game drew a sellout crowd of 6,800 fans and a large crowd in Alumni Memorial Auditorium viewed the game via a closed-circuit television.

Grover hosted varsity basketball games until the opening of the Convocation Center in 1969.