University of Jamestown to wrap up bubble project, start work on other projects

Sep. 13—JAMESTOWN — The University of Jamestown will be wrapping up one project in the next couple of months while work another one starts.

The university is expected to start using the Nelson Family Bubble around Nov. 1, and UJ officials will break ground on the renovation of Voorhees Chapel and the construction of the new center for faith and life this fall.

Construction on the Nelson Family Bubble — an indoor athletic and wellness facility that will be located next to Harold Newman Arena — is on time and on budget, said Dustin Jensen, vice president for student affairs and dean of students at UJ. He said the turf field could arrive at the university in the middle of this month and once that is installed, the bubble will start to go up.

"We are expecting the bubble to be inflated by Oct. 14 and usage to start around Nov. 1," he said.

The Nelson Family Bubble was named after Jim Nelson, a former sportswriter for The Jamestown Sun, and Lynn Nelson-Paretta. A gift from the estate of the two siblings assisted in the development of the bubble. The amount of the gift was not released.

Jensen said the bubble will serve UJ's student population and student-athletes. The soccer and softball teams will play competitive games in the bubble at different times during their seasons pending weather and conditions.

"We can see come November time frame, soccer matches, when the weather is really bad outside, we just move it into the bubble and play it inside and have a great place to play," he said. "From a softball standpoint, we will be able to host games very similar to what our team did when they went down to Presentation College (South Dakota) and play in the bubble down there."

Jensen said the football, track and field, baseball, softball, soccer and golf teams will be able to practice in the bubble as well. From an academic standpoint, he said the kinesiology, exercise science and physical education students will also be able to use the facility, and student clubs and intramural programs will be able to host events or activities there as well.

"It's really going to be a facility that will touch all students on campus throughout the year," he said.

He said the soccer teams will continue to play at Charlotte and Gordon Hansen Stadium when the weather is good.

UJ President Polly Peterson said the bubble is "critical" with the snow being on the ground longer the past several years. In the past, she said sports bubbles were thought to be luxuries.

"The spring sports, the last three out of five years have barely been able to play or run at home, and this is going to allow them to have structured, efficient and really productive practices because they can be inside in a big space that's warm enough to actually feel like your outside but you are inside," she said. "It's become almost a necessity and not a luxury ... in this part of the country."

Peterson said the bubble will play a significant role in the recruitment of student-athletes if its application for membership to the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference is accepted. The university — an NAIA program that competes in the Great Plains Athletic Conference — recently applied to the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference in the NCAA Division II level.

"It allows us to demonstrate that we have the facilities to compete at this level that are comparable if not better than some of the other schools that we are going to be competing against," she said. "I think for athletes, it's a convincing display of our commitment to supporting their preparation.

"Students who are looking north know that we have six to seven months of winter," she said. " ... They want to know that they can practice all year long because that's the way that sports are now. Students are used to coming out of high school practicing year-round, having the support services around them to develop and grow and build strength, etcetera, and we can do that in a space like this. That's not something that everybody has yet so I think it is for us a good recruitment edge."

The Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference is projected to make a decision on the potential membership of the North Dakota school — a four-year private university — by the end of December, Forum News Service reported in August.

Jensen said the university could partner with the community and others for use of the bubble.

"We have a long history from ... (Jamestown) Parks and Recreation using our land right now for Wilson Arena and Eagles Arena to the days of (when) the YMCA was in university property, Parks and Rec had their own swimming pool here," he said. "We were all about partnering in our community and making sure that our facilities are accessible to our entire community. I can see camps and clinics and all kinds of different things like we've done at other locations continuing to be there."

Peterson said UJ officials plan to hold a groundbreaking ceremony on Oct. 5 for the renovation of Voorhees Chapel and the construction of the new center for faith and life.

"You will start to see some trees getting removed and some things as we move into the later fall with the idea that construction will begin in the spring, probably end of April, early May as students are finishing up a semester," Peterson said. "We will do some things a little bit before that that aren't completely disruptive for the students but then once classes are done you will see all of the construction get pretty ramped up and it will take about a year."

While the project is happening, Voorhees Chapel will be offline and a new home will need to be found for services, she said.

The project is made possible by the single largest donation in university history and to a private institution in North Dakota. Jim and Candy Unruh donated $15 million toward the creation and naming of UJ's new School of Character in Leadership, to support the renovation of the chapel and a new addition that will become the center for faith and life and will connect the chapel to the Badal Nafus Center.

The School of Character in Leadership will be headquartered in the basement of the chapel once it is renovated.

Peterson said the university has been in the silent phase of its capital campaign for a few years, which included renovating Hansen Stadium, adding the engineering and civil engineering program and developing the foundational program or UJ in character in leadership. She said the capital campaign supports the university's strategic plan.

The purchase of a portion of the Legacy Living Center in October of 2022 will allow for more student housing for UJ students. A civil engineering lab has also been added in one of the open spaces in the facility.

The Legacy Living Center has 51 apartments with the university currently owning about two-thirds of them. Jensen said the university is housing students in the apartments as they become available.

"The facility is not open to the public to lease anymore but we are going to keep those leases ongoing for anyone that was there and then as apartments open up we will move more and more students down into that space and just continue to fill it full," Jensen said.

He said the residents and businesses already in the facility will continue to be there because the university wants to be a "great" community partner.

Peterson said UJ provides learning in and outside the classrooms. She said learning outside the classroom happens because the university has a living-learning environment where students can interact with faculty sometimes into the evening.

"For that to really work efficiently, our students want to be on campus, they want to be near campus," she said. "To do that, they want some apartment-style living."

She said the addition of the Legacy Living Center allows the university to offer more single-style dorms.

"The students who live in what we used to call the traditional dorm style tend to want singles now," she said.

Jensen said the Legacy Living Center has a number of open spaces that could be used for other departments.

"We are analyzing what academic departments we can see being a good fit in that facility," he said. "In the coming years, you will probably see a department or two move into that facility and create some additional space on the historic main campus."