From the top of the Alumni Fund Walk of Pride, peeking out from the fall foliage stands the newest addition to Arcadia’s campus. On Monday it took 22 facility workers six hours to install and 20 minutes to inflate the new sports dome. After two years of planning a summer of excavating, the dome project was completed.

“Thanks to the vision of President Jerry Greiner, VP Mike Coveney and the Board of Trustees, this project became a reality, to their credit,” says Tom Macchi, Associate Vice President of Facilities and Capital Planning. “We are a winter campus, so creating additional indoor space for all sorts of activities is invaluable to our campus. It should be noted that this is a seasonal structure that will be remove in the spring time restoring the tennis facility back to its original design.”

Spanning three tennis courts opposite Blankley Field, the dome will be completed by this weekend.  The 18,406-square-foot facility will include indoor sports turf. On Monday workers installed 24 indirect lights, each bouncing 1,000-watts off the white dome.

“Please go see the dome. It’s awesome,” says Shirley Liddle, Arcadia University’s Director of Athletics. “It’s a whole new facility that will be great for recreation and events, campus-wide. It’s a multipurpose, heated, facility. It will give us many opportunities that we don’t currently have for practices, planned intramurals and open recreation time—it’s like having another field or gym. Students will be able to take advantage of indoor lacrosse, field hockey and soccer through the winter.”

The floor space in the dome is one third bigger than the gymnasium in Kuch Center. Watch the Bulletin for more on the Dome.