Sunday, May 11, 2014

D'Youville receives home field advantage


Construction of D’Youville College’s $3 million athletic complex on the corner of Fourth Street and Porter Avenue is underway and will feature the school's first ever-home athletic field.
The college also is  building a 4,000 square foot field house, which will feature two locker rooms, an office and a medical facility for a trainer.
The college started planning for the field about five years ago when it purchased the land where the original Ted’s Hot Dogs  restaurant used to be. It took two and half years to go through all of the environmental studies, but that sale went through in the spring, said Ed Cogan, the associate vice president for operations at D’Youville.  
D’Youville separately purchased the remaining land for the field from the New York State Thruway Authority and from a homeowner who just “knocked on the college’s door one day and asked if anyone would like to buy her house,” Cogan said.
“It really kind of came together,” said Cogan.
The severe winter weather delayed the construction until mid-February for the 3.5-acre soccer, baseball and lacrosse field, said Cogan.  Despite the construction delay, the field will be completed in August. By Peter Murphy and Bill Schutt