DePaul University to construct $60M basketball team practice facility on its Lincoln Park campus
DePaul University President Robert Manuel announced Thursday the construction of a basketball team practice facility on its Lincoln Park campus. The $60 million project will include the demolition of a DePaul-owned apartment complex and renovations to the existing Sullivan Athletic Center and McGrath-Phillips Arena.
The effort will be funded primarily by university donors, said Manuel, who also announced the establishment of three institutes to study poverty, environmental sustainability and artificial intelligence.
“Through research and teaching, our faculty are preparing students to solve the most pressing issues facing society today,” he said. “At the same time, we are raising support for our student-athletes in a way that will elevate all of DePaul.”
The decision to expand its athletic facilities comes as DePaul, like many universities, struggles with declining enrollment and revenue. In April, school officials projected for this fiscal year a budget shortfall of $56 million. School data show total enrollment fell from 22,064 in 2019 to 20,917 last year. The budget shortfall was first reported in The DePaulia, the university’s student-run newspaper.
But DeWayne Peevy, vice president and director of athletics, said DePaul, now the largest Catholic university in the U.S., was put on the map by legendary coach Ray Meyer’s Blue Demons basketball squad, which reached the NCAA Final Four in 1979. The school’s current facilities make it difficult to compete with other Division I teams when recruiting student-athletes. The upcoming renovations at Sullivan and McGrath-Phillips, both on the 2300 block of North Sheffield Avenue, will mean student-athletes in all 15 varsity programs, not just the basketball players, will have separate locker rooms and gathering spaces.
“High school teams have locker rooms,” Peevy said. “Our student lounge is on the floor outside my office. The way I look at it, we’ve been working with one hand tied behind our back.”
DePaul aims to begin renovating Sullivan and McGrath-Phillips this winter, complete the first phase in late summer 2024, and start construction of the basketball facility directly across the street no earlier than summer 2025, completing it by fall 2026.
In addition to tapping university donors, DePaul may also sell naming rights to the facilities, Peevy added.
“We have to raise a certain amount of money to make sure our university is not on the hook for this project,” he said. “Our goal is to go out and raise it all.”
DePaul plans to demolish a four-story apartment building on the northwest corner of Belden and Sheffield avenues that it purchased in 2021 to make way for the practice facility.
The new building will have a brick facade on the first two floors, so it blends in with the surrounding neighborhood’s architecture, said Joseph Antunovich, CEO of Antunovich Associates, the university’s master planner.
“The pedestrian scale is very important around here,” he said.
The facility’s two basketball courts, one apiece for the men’s and women’s teams, will be on the third floor, and feature floor-to-ceiling glass, providing players with views of the entire neighborhood.
Although the university got feedback over the past 18 months from community groups such as Sheffield Neighborhood Association and Wrightwood Neighbors, among others, as well as former 43rd Ward Ald. Michele Smith and current Ald. Timmy Knudsen, it still needs to hold another communitywide public meeting before seeking approval from the Chicago Plan Commission and the full City Council, Antunovich said.
