The 5,100-seat, 160,000-square-foot facility will provide a premier gathering space for major campus events and serve as the new home for ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ's basketball and volleyball programs when it opens this year.
A number of components of ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ’s new Schar Center are now complete, including the Maurice J. Koury Practice Facility and the Robert V. Gill Room as crews continue to make progress on the expansive project.
The Schar Center will serve as a venue for convocations, speakers and other major campus events. It will also be the new home court for ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ’s basketball and volleyball teams, with triple the space of Alumni Memorial Gymnasium, and include a practice facility with two full courts, hospitality room, club-level seating and high-definition video boards. The facility is scheduled to open in fall 2018.
Visitors to the website can take a look inside and outside the Schar Center with fly-through videos. In addition, an interactive construction cam allows viewers to scroll back through construction photos and provides a time-lapse feature so viewers can watch the center take shape.
The facility is named for ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ parents Dwight and Martha Schar of Palm Beach, Fla., who are among ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ’s most generous donors and whose $13 million in gifts to the university provided lead funding for the convocation center and the expanded School of Communications.