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CHAIFETZ ARENA
AT SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY
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By Susan Caba
The new home of Billiken basketball is almost finished, with
construction expected to be completed at the end of February,
and then move-in and final installations will take place through
the month of March. The arena will be dedicated in May, but
should be complete by the first week of April. Fundraising for
the facility continues, with several naming opportunities still
available.
“Chaifetz Arena will enhance campus life and continue the revitalization
of Midtown St. Louis,” says Father Lawrence Biondi, S.J., president
of SLU. “When the Arena opens, we anticipate more than 400,000
people a year coming to the campus for basketball games, concerts,
shows and other events.”
The arena will replace the West Pine gym, built in the 1920s.
That one-story un-air-conditioned building “is not exactly a
showplace, from a recruitment standpoint,” says SLU spokesman
Jeff Fowler.
“Our facilities, from a strictly athletic standpoint—particularly
for basketball—were simply old and out of date,” Fowler says.
“Our men’s team is playing at Scottrade Center, which is essentially
a hockey facility. We were always behind the Blues and other
events, in terms of scheduling. To move the University athletics
forward, to move up in Division 1, we needed new facilities.”
St. Louis-based Clayco Construction Co. is the general contractor
for the arena. Philadelphia-based Global Spectrum has been selected
to manage the Arena for the University.
SLU alumnus Dr. Richard A. Chaifetz made a $12 million gift
for the naming rights to the Arena itself. And, while the arena
will bear his name, he attributes his generosity to Fr. Paul
C. Reinert, S.J., who was SLU president when Chaifetz attended
the University.
“Father Reinert believed in me and allowed me to stay at SLU
at a time in my life when I didn’t have the financial resources
to pay for my tuition,” Chaifetz says. “Now, this is an opportunity
for me to give back to the University for all the support and
guidance I received as an undergraduate here.”
A licensed neuropsychologist, Chaifetz is founder and CEO of
Chicago-based ComPsych Corp., the world’s largest provider of
employee assistance programs. He graduated magna cum laude from
SLU in 1975. He was a sophomore when he was notified that his
recently divorced parents were behind in his tuition payments.
He would have to leave school.
Instead, he appealed to Fr. Reinert. He would, he promised,
“make something” of himself and repay the school if he were
allowed to continue at the University. Fr. Reinert agreed.
“I was talking to my wife a few years ago and said it was time
we do something for the University,” Chaifetz recalled in a
telephone interview. “We talked to Father Biondi. I was thinking
of endowing a professorship in psychology, when they said they
were going to build a new arena.”
Chaifetz knew he wanted to participate.
“Sports was so important to me—I used to go to all the basketball
and hockey games. We were always ranked in the top 20 of Division
1, or better and we want to get it back.”
Besides the 10,600-seat arena for men’s and women’s basketball,
concerts and other events, the sports complex will include strength
and conditioning facilities, sports medicine facilities, new
locker rooms for all Billiken teams, offices and VIP parking
for 240. The university’s volleyball team will play on additional
courts at the western end of the arena.
“I know it will mean a lot to our students, who will now be
able to walk to basketball games and have more variety of entertainment
events on campus,” says Fr. Biondi. “For our athletic teams,
we will now have better facilities than many other major Division
1 programs in the Midwest.”
Fr. Biondi added that it was equally important that the facility
was not built using tuition money. Besides private and corporate
donations, the University used bond money that will be repaid
from revenue from the arena.
The men’s basketball team now plays at the Scottrade Center.
Besides being difficult to schedule games at optimum times for
broadcast and the fact that students can’t walk to the games
from campus, the Scottrade Center is so big that even a crowd
of 13,000 basketball fans leaves the place half-empty. That,
says Fowler, cuts down on excitement.
“This is going to create a completely different atmosphere for
athletics than we have now,” he says. “This is going to be sold
out. It’s going to be loud and it’s going to be much more intimate
than we’ve had before. We’re going to have a real home court
advantage.”
In addition to basketball and volleyball games, the new facilities
will be used for concerts, shows and other events.
“It’s going to provide new options in terms of entertainment
for our students,” Fowler says. “It’s going to bring about 400,000
people a year to campus who might not otherwise be here. It’s
going to help raise our profile.”
In addition, the $81 million project—along with the construction
of an $82 million University biomedical research building—contributes
to the growth of the Grand Center and mid-town area, which is
evolving into both an entertainment district and a hub of the
bioscience industry in St. Louis. SLU has invested an estimated
$800 million in the area in the past 20 years.
“There is a tremendous amount of development and energy in the
area and we think Chaifetz Arena fits in with that,” Fowler
says. “We want to create an environment where more people come
here to live—and not just our students.”
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