Colby College announced has opened the $200 million Harold Alfond Athletics and Recreation Center on its Waterville, Maine, campus.
The college says in a news release that the 350,000-square-foot building is the most advanced and comprehensive NCAA Division-III facility in the nation.
The center has an aquatics center with the only Olympic-sized Myrtha pool in Maine, an ice arena with year-round regulation ice, the Margaret M. Crook Center with three regulation-length basketball/volleyball courts, and the open-air O’Neil Atrium at the center of the building. Additional highlights:
- The three-level Boulos Family Fitness Center
- An indoor competition center (track/field house) with a six-lane track, regulation tennis courts, and accommodations for pole vault, high jump, long/triple jump, and shot put.
- A squash center with nine championship regulation courts.
- A 42-foot-tall climbing and bouldering wall with terrain ranging from easy vertical to more difficult articulated areas.
- An athletic trainer’s suite with hydrotherapy pools, exam rooms and a triage room.
Construction of the center was made possible in large part from the philanthropic support of the Harold Alfond Foundation.
The three-story building was developed to emphasize daylight and openness, maximize views into venues, and intuitively articulate the building’s organization—conveying a sense of intimacy despite its expansive scale.
The college is aiming to achieve LEED Gold certification for the center's design and construction. Key sustainability components include optimizing natural resources (e.g. daylight harvesting), minimizing embodied carbon, and reducing energy and water use as well as carbon and greenhouse gas emissions.
The architects on the project are Hopkins Architects and Sasaki. The general contractor is Consigli.
