Stroh Center
Encyclopedia
The Stroh Center is a 5,000-seat multi-purpose arena
on the campus of Bowling Green State University
in Bowling Green, Ohio
that is currently under construction and will open September 2011. When the arena opens, it will replace Anderson Arena
as the home of the Bowling Green Falcons
men's
and women's basketball
and women's volleyball
teams and will host music concerts and the university's commencement ceremonies. The arena was designed by the architectural firm Rossetti Architects
, designers of Red Bull Arena and Rio Tinto Stadium, and engineering firm URS Group.
, Kermit Stroh, a trustee of the university from 1993–2002, and his late wife Mary Lu donated a university record $8.7 million to the university towards interscholastic athletics with $7.7 million marked for the building of a new convocation center that was to replace venerable Anderson Arena.
After a fundraiser that netted $13.5 million, including the $7.7 million from the Strohs, Bowling Green earmarked $36 million to fund the construction of the new arena, which included a $60 student fee every semester once the building was opened until the loans for the construction of the arena were paid off. As plans for the arena accelerated despite the university's poor financial situation, several students formed a coalition to have a student vote on the Undergraduate Student Government's resolution that the student body supported paying the extra fee, leaving the passage of the resolution to the students in a vote. The subsequent vote was held online in late March 2009, 28% of the student population participated in the vote and approved of the future fee with 2,630 students in favor, while 1,182 were opposed.
Seven sites around the campus were under consideration for the construction of the Stroh Center, including the adjacent parking lot next to Memorial Hall which houses Anderson Arena and the intramural fields between Doyt Perry Stadium
and the Kreischer residence halls. The university ultimately decided to build the arena on a large parking lot along Wooster Street and Mercer Road at the east end of the campus that served as one of two parking lots for students that resided in the dormitorys on campus. Ground was broken on September 3, 2009 as Kerm Stroh dug a patch of ground with a backhoe at a ceremony attended by around 450 spectators and media. The first steel beam was installed at the Stroh Center site on January 25, 2010 and the site's topping off occurred during a ceremony on May 3, 2010.
In July 2008, the university announced that a 2-ton, 23 feet (7 m) falcon statue would be installed at the entrance of the new arena. The statue was a gift from North Carolina philanthropist, Irwin Belk, and will cost $100,000. The statue was be designed by the Jon Hair Studio of Fine Art near Cornelius, North Carolina
and will be the largest bronze falcon statue in the world. The falcon statute was installed in November 2010 and became part of the Falcon Spirit Plaza at the front entrance of the Stroh Center.
of Southfield, Michigan and the Cleveland office of the URS Group engineering firm. A major goal of the construction was to replicate the intimacy of Anderson Arena, while providing athletes and spectators the modern comforts of a state-of-the-art convocation center. To accommodate this the Stroh Center was built in a theatre-in-the-round design, providing an open walkway allowing spectators to walk completely around the facility without missing the event on the stadium floor. The arena would also include 88 courtside seats and the furthest seat in the arena, 60 feet (18.3 m) from the court, would only be five feet further from the furthest seat at Anderson Arena. The seat widths at the new arena range from 19–22 inches, while the largest seat at Anderson was only 18 inches. The arena will also have four restrooms each at the north and south ends of the arena, two for women, one for men and one for families and will provide four concession areas in the open walkways.
An auxiliary gym at the Stroh Center, to be called the Schmidthorst Pavilion, was paid for with a $1.7 million donation from Allen and Carol Schmidthorst, while the court for the gym was paid for with a $1 million donation from Bowling Green alumnus Larry Miles. The auxiliary practice gym to be built with the combined $2.7 million would help the men's and women's basketball teams avoid scheduling conflicts with the arena, an amenity that was not available at the Anderson Arena. The arena will also include four visiting team locker rooms that can accommodate multiple teams that could help the arena to support events such as high school basketball tournaments.
The main video board at the Stroh Center will be 10 feet (3 m) high by 20 feet (6.1 m) wide with fixed sponsor elements and decorative cladding developed by Capturion Network LLC. The scoreboard will hang above the west basket and can operate as one large screen or be divided into multiple sections which have the ability to display real-time statistics, sponsor graphics, 3D animations and high definition live or recorded video. Along with the scoreboard, Capturion will manufacture the scorer’s tables and press row which will also feature the company's latest technology. There also is a three-foot-by-30 feet (9.1 m) “ribbon board” on the east end of the court with a variety of other scoreboards set to be in place in Fall 2011.
The Stroh Center will also hold a prominently placed Hall of Fame to commemorate the history of athletics at Bowling Green State University that will include exhibits and display cases that will hold items on a rotating basis. There will also be a designated area within the arena for cataloging and storing items not currently on display. Before the facilities at the Stroh Center, almost all memorabilia and artifacts related to Bowling Green athletics since the university's opening in 1910 had been stored in boxes in a small room just off the lobby of Anderson Arena in Memorial Hall and voluntarily collected and stored by former Bowling Green men's soccer and lacrosse coach Mickey Cochrane, who is namesake for Mickey Cochrane Field which serves as the home of the Bowling Green Falcons men's and women's soccer teams.
Harold Anderson
, former Bowling Green men's basketball coach and athletic director and namesake for the Stroh Center's predecessor Anderson Arena, is remembered with the Anderson Club. The Anderson Club will consist of an approximately 1500 square feet (139.4 m²) club area and chair back seating for roughly 400 fans. It will include hospitality areas, food and beverage service, high-definition televisions and areas to view the games. The Anderson Club area will be located on the concourse level on the south side of the arena at mid-court and seating for fans will extend to the floor-level row.
, on August 13, 2011. The first Bowling Green athletic event at the new arena was a women's volleyball match between Bowling Green and Michigan State
on September 9. The Bowling Green Falcons defeated the Spartans in four games, 3-1 with the attendance of 2,961 people. The men's basketball team will play their first game at the Stroh Center on November 11 against Howard, with the women's team playing their home opener against Purdue
five days later.
Plans have also been announced for the Stroh Center to host a regular season game between the Bowling Green men's basketball team and the nationally prominent Michigan State men's basketball team
during the 2012–13 men's basketball season and hosting first and second round games of the 2012 NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Tournament
.
41.375343°N 83.624711°W
Arena
An arena is an enclosed area, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theater, musical performances, or sporting events. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectators. The key feature of an arena is that the event space is the...
on the campus of Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green State University, often referred to as Bowling Green or BGSU, is a public, coeducational research university located in Bowling Green, Ohio, United States. The institution was granted a charter in 1910 by the State of Ohio as part of the Lowry Bill, which also established Kent State...
in Bowling Green, Ohio
Bowling Green, Ohio
Bowling Green is the county seat of Wood County in the U.S. state of Ohio. At the time of the 2010 census, the population of Bowling Green was 30,028. It is part of the Toledo, Ohio Metropolitan Statistical Area. Bowling Green is the home of Bowling Green State University...
that is currently under construction and will open September 2011. When the arena opens, it will replace Anderson Arena
Anderson Arena
Anderson Arena is a 4,700-seat indoor arena that sits in Memorial Hall on the campus of Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio and is currently home to the Bowling Green Falcons women's gymnastics team. The arena, which opened in 1960, served as the home arena for Bowling Green's...
as the home of the Bowling Green Falcons
Bowling Green Falcons
The Bowling Green Falcons are the intercollegiate athletic teams of Bowling Green State University, located in Bowling Green, Ohio. The Falcons participate in NCAA Division I in the Mid-American Conference and the Central Collegiate Hockey Association. BGSU is one of only 13 universities in the...
men's
Bowling Green Falcons men's basketball
The Bowling Green Falcons men's basketball team is the basketball team that represent Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. The school's team currently competes in the Mid-American Conference. The team last played in the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament in 1968...
and women's basketball
Bowling Green Falcons women's basketball
The Bowling Green Falcons women's basketball team is the NCAA Division I women's basketball team that represents Bowling Green State University. The team plays at the 4,700-seat Anderson Arena on the BGSU campus in Bowling Green, Ohio. The Falcons are scheduled to move into the new 5,000-seat Stroh...
and women's volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
teams and will host music concerts and the university's commencement ceremonies. The arena was designed by the architectural firm Rossetti Architects
Rossetti Architects
Rossetti Architects is an architectural firm headquartered in Southfield, Michigan The firm is involved in the design of professional sports stadiums, institutions and commercial buildings.- Current projects :...
, designers of Red Bull Arena and Rio Tinto Stadium, and engineering firm URS Group.
History
After almost five decades of service to Bowling Green State University, a need to replace Anderson Arena emerged due to the arena's limited accommodations including only two restrooms in the entire arena and poor acoustics for concerts, but the most glaring reason for a replacement of Anderson Arena was the activities center's failure to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, all of which proving detrimental to the university's image and recruiting abilities. At the men's basketball 2008 home finale against rival Kent StateKent State Golden Flashes men's basketball
The Kent State Golden Flashes men's basketball team represents Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. The Golden Flashes compete in the Mid-American Conference East Division and last played in the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament in 2008...
, Kermit Stroh, a trustee of the university from 1993–2002, and his late wife Mary Lu donated a university record $8.7 million to the university towards interscholastic athletics with $7.7 million marked for the building of a new convocation center that was to replace venerable Anderson Arena.
After a fundraiser that netted $13.5 million, including the $7.7 million from the Strohs, Bowling Green earmarked $36 million to fund the construction of the new arena, which included a $60 student fee every semester once the building was opened until the loans for the construction of the arena were paid off. As plans for the arena accelerated despite the university's poor financial situation, several students formed a coalition to have a student vote on the Undergraduate Student Government's resolution that the student body supported paying the extra fee, leaving the passage of the resolution to the students in a vote. The subsequent vote was held online in late March 2009, 28% of the student population participated in the vote and approved of the future fee with 2,630 students in favor, while 1,182 were opposed.
Seven sites around the campus were under consideration for the construction of the Stroh Center, including the adjacent parking lot next to Memorial Hall which houses Anderson Arena and the intramural fields between Doyt Perry Stadium
Doyt Perry Stadium
Doyt L. Perry Stadium is a stadium in Bowling Green, Ohio, United States. It is primarily used for American football, and is the home field of the Bowling Green State University Falcons. It opened in 1966 and originally held 23,232 people. Recent renovations and new NCAA seating regulations have...
and the Kreischer residence halls. The university ultimately decided to build the arena on a large parking lot along Wooster Street and Mercer Road at the east end of the campus that served as one of two parking lots for students that resided in the dormitorys on campus. Ground was broken on September 3, 2009 as Kerm Stroh dug a patch of ground with a backhoe at a ceremony attended by around 450 spectators and media. The first steel beam was installed at the Stroh Center site on January 25, 2010 and the site's topping off occurred during a ceremony on May 3, 2010.
In July 2008, the university announced that a 2-ton, 23 feet (7 m) falcon statue would be installed at the entrance of the new arena. The statue was a gift from North Carolina philanthropist, Irwin Belk, and will cost $100,000. The statue was be designed by the Jon Hair Studio of Fine Art near Cornelius, North Carolina
Cornelius, North Carolina
Cornelius is a town located along Lake Norman in northern Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 11,969 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Cornelius is located along Lake Norman in northern Mecklenburg County...
and will be the largest bronze falcon statue in the world. The falcon statute was installed in November 2010 and became part of the Falcon Spirit Plaza at the front entrance of the Stroh Center.
Design and amenities
The Stroh Center was designed by Rossetti ArchitectsRossetti Architects
Rossetti Architects is an architectural firm headquartered in Southfield, Michigan The firm is involved in the design of professional sports stadiums, institutions and commercial buildings.- Current projects :...
of Southfield, Michigan and the Cleveland office of the URS Group engineering firm. A major goal of the construction was to replicate the intimacy of Anderson Arena, while providing athletes and spectators the modern comforts of a state-of-the-art convocation center. To accommodate this the Stroh Center was built in a theatre-in-the-round design, providing an open walkway allowing spectators to walk completely around the facility without missing the event on the stadium floor. The arena would also include 88 courtside seats and the furthest seat in the arena, 60 feet (18.3 m) from the court, would only be five feet further from the furthest seat at Anderson Arena. The seat widths at the new arena range from 19–22 inches, while the largest seat at Anderson was only 18 inches. The arena will also have four restrooms each at the north and south ends of the arena, two for women, one for men and one for families and will provide four concession areas in the open walkways.
An auxiliary gym at the Stroh Center, to be called the Schmidthorst Pavilion, was paid for with a $1.7 million donation from Allen and Carol Schmidthorst, while the court for the gym was paid for with a $1 million donation from Bowling Green alumnus Larry Miles. The auxiliary practice gym to be built with the combined $2.7 million would help the men's and women's basketball teams avoid scheduling conflicts with the arena, an amenity that was not available at the Anderson Arena. The arena will also include four visiting team locker rooms that can accommodate multiple teams that could help the arena to support events such as high school basketball tournaments.
The main video board at the Stroh Center will be 10 feet (3 m) high by 20 feet (6.1 m) wide with fixed sponsor elements and decorative cladding developed by Capturion Network LLC. The scoreboard will hang above the west basket and can operate as one large screen or be divided into multiple sections which have the ability to display real-time statistics, sponsor graphics, 3D animations and high definition live or recorded video. Along with the scoreboard, Capturion will manufacture the scorer’s tables and press row which will also feature the company's latest technology. There also is a three-foot-by-30 feet (9.1 m) “ribbon board” on the east end of the court with a variety of other scoreboards set to be in place in Fall 2011.
The Stroh Center will also hold a prominently placed Hall of Fame to commemorate the history of athletics at Bowling Green State University that will include exhibits and display cases that will hold items on a rotating basis. There will also be a designated area within the arena for cataloging and storing items not currently on display. Before the facilities at the Stroh Center, almost all memorabilia and artifacts related to Bowling Green athletics since the university's opening in 1910 had been stored in boxes in a small room just off the lobby of Anderson Arena in Memorial Hall and voluntarily collected and stored by former Bowling Green men's soccer and lacrosse coach Mickey Cochrane, who is namesake for Mickey Cochrane Field which serves as the home of the Bowling Green Falcons men's and women's soccer teams.
Harold Anderson
Harold Anderson
W. Harold Anderson was a college men's basketball coach at Bowling Green State University and the University of Toledo. As a player, he played at Otterbein College, a small liberal arts college outside of Columbus, Ohio. As a coach, he was one of the first to win more than 500 games on the...
, former Bowling Green men's basketball coach and athletic director and namesake for the Stroh Center's predecessor Anderson Arena, is remembered with the Anderson Club. The Anderson Club will consist of an approximately 1500 square feet (139.4 m²) club area and chair back seating for roughly 400 fans. It will include hospitality areas, food and beverage service, high-definition televisions and areas to view the games. The Anderson Club area will be located on the concourse level on the south side of the arena at mid-court and seating for fans will extend to the floor-level row.
Notable events
The Stroh Center held its first ticketed event, a concert by Christian rock band Sanctus RealSanctus Real
Sanctus Real is an American Christian rock band formed in Toledo, Ohio, in 1996. The group is composed of Matt Hammitt , Chris Rohman , Dan Gartley , Pete Prevost , and Mark Graalman...
, on August 13, 2011. The first Bowling Green athletic event at the new arena was a women's volleyball match between Bowling Green and Michigan State
Michigan State Spartans
The Michigan State Spartans are the athletic team that represent Michigan State University. The school's athletic program includes 25 varsity sports teams. Their mascot is a Spartan warrior named Sparty, and the school colors are green and white...
on September 9. The Bowling Green Falcons defeated the Spartans in four games, 3-1 with the attendance of 2,961 people. The men's basketball team will play their first game at the Stroh Center on November 11 against Howard, with the women's team playing their home opener against Purdue
Purdue Boilermakers Women's Basketball
The Purdue Boilermakers women's basketball team is a college basketball program that competes in NCAA Division I and the Big Ten Conference. Purdue is rich in tradition and history, holding the record for Big Ten Championships, along with being the only program in the conference to boast winning...
five days later.
Plans have also been announced for the Stroh Center to host a regular season game between the Bowling Green men's basketball team and the nationally prominent Michigan State men's basketball team
Michigan State Spartans men's basketball
The Michigan State Spartans men's basketball team represents Michigan State University and competes in the Big Ten Conference of NCAA Division I. The team currently plays at the Breslin Student Events Center...
during the 2012–13 men's basketball season and hosting first and second round games of the 2012 NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Tournament
2012 NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Tournament
The following 16 sites will be used for first and second round games:*Hilton Coliseum, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa*Pete Maravich Assembly Center, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana...
.
External links
41.375343°N 83.624711°W