Walking down Spring Street, one cannot help but notice the new expanse of sky peeking out just left of Where’d You Get That?!, Inc. — which appeared when the Towne Field House was demolished last month.
The building was closed in early March after a student reported that a portion of the climbing wall had detached from the wall, prompting athletic teams to search for alternative spaces to practice. Following an investigation, the College found that the southeastern roof beam was severely deteriorating and not fit to bear weight, and in September, the College determined that the building could not be repaired.
To replace the 55-year-old field house, the College will build a multipurpose recreation center (MRC), which is set to be completed in 2025. In the interim, the College’s athletic teams, physical education classes, and the broader student body have had to scramble to find other facilities on campus as championship season edges closer and closer.
The demand for the College’s existing indoor athletic facilities is especially high during winter months, according to Associate Athletic Director for Facilities and Operations Jill Campbell. “Lasell Gym and Chandler Gym are being used heavily (and in somewhat unconventional ways), but to make up for the space that was lost from Towne, really every area within the fitness and athletic buildings are being used,” she wrote in an email to the Record.
Softball and baseball, which previously used the field house for practices, are currently practicing in the Lasell Gymnasium. While both teams wait for the College to lay down portable turf on its basketball courts, players have been practicing on tarps. The teams are also planning to visit off-campus facilities on the weekends to supplement on-campus practices.
“Realistically, Lasell just isn’t big enough to do some full on stuff that I think is just important for all of us to do,” softball player Alysa DeQuiroz ’26 wrote in an email to the Record.
Chandler Gymnasium remains a training space for men’s basketball, and captains have had to coordinate with each other to reserve the space using a Google form.
“The court is a lot more slippery because of all the dust that [the track and field teams] brought in since bringing the [pole vaulting] cushions,” men’s basketball player Xay Dickens ’26 said in an interview with the Record.
“I think, in the field house, it was way more understood that each team was going to have their set practice time,” baseball player Kedar Veeraswamy ’24 told the Record. “[In Lasell], it’s still a little bit more informal, but I think every team is doing a really good job of cooperating.” (Veeraswamy, who was formerly a member of the Record editorial board, was not involved in the writing or editing of this article.)
Non-varsity teams, such as intramural basketball, have also struggled to find training facilities on campus after the demolition of the field house.
“It’s been pretty tough — even though it’s Winter Study — it has been difficult to find time for court space with the basketball teams practicing every day at 4 p.m.,” said intramural basketball player Sachin Kirtane ’26.
With other teams occupying their typical practice spaces, the crew teams have started using Greylock Studio for its indoor rowing sessions, and both track and field teams have begun using Chandler Gymnasium for its pole vault training. Formerly, men and women’s crew had been using Upper Lasell and track the Towne Field House — both have had to find alternate training spaces after the demolition. The track and field teams have also traveled to various locations on- and off-campus for winter training — including a rented facility in North Adams, dubbed by the team as the “track shack” — given the large number of team members and variety of events for which to train.
“That has eased the scheduling for on-campus facilities,” Campbell wrote of track and field’s off-campus space. “But even still, it is challenging to find time for everyone to practice and recreate as much as needed and wanted.”
Meanwhile, distance runners for track and field, like Luke Zanuck ’26, are meeting in the turf room in Lower Lasell — which Zanuck estimated is a mere 300 square feet.
“It’s a little bit different, a little bit smaller than what we used to have, but we’re making it work,” he said. “There’s just a lot more reliance on outside training and a little bit more of independent planning.”
Despite the circumstances, the team remains hopeful for the ongoing season. “The last time we were without the field house, the women won the national championship, so it’s absolutely not a count out for the team at all,” said distance runner Bradley St. Laurent ’26.
“I love my teammates, I love my team,” DeQuiroz added. “We have been making the most of it.”
