Gonzaga unveils expansion projects

When Gonzaga University’s basketball team went to the Elite Eight round in the NCAA college basketball tournament nine years ago this March, no one could know just how much Spokane’s small Jesuit university would grow.

The national exposure gave Gonzaga cache.

Less than a decade later, Gonzaga has grown from 4,500 to 6,900 students.

To accommodate the growth, the campus has undergone an explosion of work on new buildings, additions, renovations, fields and other facilities that have completely remade the campus just north of the Spokane River.

Since the new GU Law School opened in 2000, the university has planned or completed 28 other projects worth more than $185 million.

“Every day you come to work, and you see something new happening,” said Dale Goodwin, communications director at GU.

The goal has never been to build a bigger campus, he said, “We kind of think of it in terms of how we can help the students have a better Gonzaga experience.”

While the success of the nationally regarded basketball program shined a spotlight on GU, it was the quality of education, abundant student aid packages and dedicated faculty that drew the additional students.

GU’s academic quality and relative value have been recognized repeatedly by U.S. News & World Report in its annual college rankings.

What the basketball success did, Goodwin said, “was cause people to sit up and take notice of us.”

Another factor, he said, has been the university’s fundraising successes led by President Robert Spitzer, who arrived in 1998.

The names of some of the largest donors can be found across new and improved campus buildings: the Kennedy Apartments, the PACCAR Center for Applied Science, the Rudolf Fitness Center, McCarthey Athletic Center and Herak Center for Engineering.

Earlier this month, the university publicly unveiled plans to build a new student residence hall between Hamilton and Cincinnati on the site of an existing soccer field. Phase 1 of the project would add rooms for 300 students at a cost of $16.1 million.

In addition, the university plans to start construction this year on a multistory, 600-vehicle parking garage on the west side of Hamilton between Boone and Desmet avenues. The Hamilton side of the facility will include a series of retail spaces that the university would lease to shopkeepers, Goodwin said. The parking structure could be expanded with an additional 300 spaces.

Initially, the retail spaces will be used for student dining so that the university can tear down its existing COG student center and replace it with a new 140,000-square-foot student facility at a cost of about $42 million. Construction would start in 2009 and be completed the following year.

It will be adjacent to Mulligan Field, a $1.3 million intramural field with artificial, year-round turf completed in 2006.

Currently under construction on campus is the new PACCAR center with 29,000 square feet of space at a cost of $7.4 million; phase one of a new competition soccer field and practice field at a cost of $2.75 million; phase two of the Kennedy Apartments for 195 students at a cost of $11 million; and a new entryway, reflecting pool and pedestrian mall on Boone at a cost of $1 million.

The reflecting pool will surround a 9-foot statue of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order.

Earlier this month, the university announced plans to spend $500,000 to move the Huetter House from its current location as part of the Bishop White Seminary to a lot just across Addison Street at Sharp Avenue. The move will allow for construction of a new seminary facility and save the historic dwelling that was initially occupied by a German Catholic contractor who built the GU Administration Building.

In another historically significant project, the university is currently renovating the Fuller Building at 111 E. Desmet Ave. to house six classrooms on the first floor and 22 offices on the second floor. Goodwin said there are no plans yet for the upper two stories, although the fourth floor would make a good location for a cafe or restaurant because of its large windows and expansive views to the south and east.

Karen Byrd, chairwoman of the Logan Neighborhood Council, said Gonzaga has improved its relationship with the neighborhood in recent years. When late-night student drinking and parties became a problem off campus, the university took steps to bring it under control.

The university also agreed to work with the city to consider street improvements on Sinto Avenue between Lidgerwood and Cincinnati streets to slow traffic. The university has said it would pay for the improvements and maintain them, she said.

But the university has resisted requests by the neighborhood to engage in a master plan on issues of traffic circulation and on-street parking. GU officials told the neighborhood council that they cannot plan for something they don’t own, Byrd said.

Otherwise, Byrd said, the growth of the campus has brought vitality, amenities and bold design to a proud old neighborhood. The new look is largely welcomed.

“Architecturally, they do a pretty good job,” she said.