Recently, the university began construction along Hogan Road and on the athletic fields behind the Mount Carmel campus.
Vice President for Facilities and Capital Planning Sal Filardi said the construction on Hogan Road will lead to new athletic facility improvements. Filardi said those improvements are his department’s number one priority.
The construction crew is working to complete a stadium turf field for men’s and women’s soccer and lacrosse, fully equipped with seating, locker rooms and storage spaces for the teams.
The university has also been working on utilities, such as the electrical system running down Hogan Road, that serve the entire campus.
There is also a plan for a new field hockey field pending approval by the town of Hamden, which, if approved, will replace the current rugby field. These changes are expected to be finished by the fall semester of 2017, according to Filardi.
Filardi believes Quinnipiac is completely committed to its students and tending to what they need, but it’s difficult to adhere to every project students want to be done.
“If we build everything people want us to build, it would be hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Filardi said.
Senior Marisa Casciano believes the stadium project near Hogan Road is a very good use of the school’s money.
“I think the stadium near Mountainview will be a good addition, because we don’t have a football team, and everybody seems to currently only get excited about men’s hockey,” Casciano said. “I think this will be a good way to get support and hype for other teams because there’ll be an actual venue and not just bleachers.”
Sophomore Lindsay Levethan agrees with Casciano that new athletic facilities would be highly used by students.
“I definitely think that we need more school spirit, so I think that putting an actual turf field in or kind of modernizing our sports facilities is a good idea for Quinnipiac,” Levethan said.
Casciano also thinks making improvements to the dining halls and dormitories or possibly building a parking garage on main campus would be beneficial, because they are places that impact a bigger population of students.
Sophomore Samantha Stoica said she believes more residence halls are a more important, pressing issue that the school should address.
“Sure, the turf field is gonna bring in money, but building another residential building will make the overall satisfactions of Quinnipiac greater amongst the student body,” Stoica said.
As for the construction off campus, Filardi said the university is always looking to purchase available land adjacent to Quinnipiac’s campuses.
Though Filardi is sure there will not be a residence hall on Whitney Avenue, he does expect something to be built on the properties eventually.
“There are no plans right now, but the town, a couple years ago, had changed zoning on that street for a potential future kind of mixed use, store fronts and maybe housing above,” Filardi said. “So I guess some day that could be what it looks like.”
Instead, he believes the school will focus on putting more beds on York Hill if it is necessary to make more room for students.
“I don’t think our class sizes are going to be getting bigger and bigger, I think we’ve kind of stabilized where we expect them to be,” Filardi said. “I do think that if we put housing on York Hill, it will be targeted towards upperclassmen.”
