Pace breaks ground on $13.5M Pleasantville athletics complex

From left, Bill Link, director of physical plant; Mark Brown, athletics director; T.J. McDonald, Pace baseball alumnus; Fred Calaicone, former Pace head baseball coach; Stephen J. Friedman, president; Bill McGrath, senior vice president and chief operating officer for the Westchester campuses.
From left, Bill Link, director of physical plant; Mark Brown, athletics director; T.J. McDonald, Pace baseball alumnus; Fred Calaicone, former Pace head baseball coach; Stephen J. Friedman, president; Bill McGrath, senior vice president and chief operating officer for the Westchester campuses.

Pace University broke ground Thursday on its new $13.5 million athletic complex, a part of the $100 million revitalization project for its Pleasantville campus.

The facility includes a field house, a softball field, a multipurpose turf field and major renovations to Peter X. Finnerty Field.

“This investment by our university documents not only the support for our 400 or so student-athletes but dedication to the entire Pleasantville campus community,” said Mark Brown, the university’s director of athletics, in a press release. “This project will revolutionize how we operate as a department by providing excellent facilities for our student-athletes and the student body as a whole.”

Pace”™s 14 intercollegiate sports teams are Division II members of the NCAA and compete in the Northeast 10 and Eastern College Athletic Conference.

Expected to be completed in the fall of 2015, the 14,000-square-foot field house will include strength and athletic training facilities, locker rooms for the women”™s soccer and women”™s lacrosse teams, a football locker room, offices, equipment storage and a VIP room.

A rendering of the new field house.
A rendering of the new field house.

Peter X. Finnerty Field will feature an artificial turf surface, new dugouts and lights. In addition to serving as the new home of the Pace baseball team, the field also will be the home of the newly established women”™s field hockey program, with the first varsity season approaching in the fall of 2015.

The multipurpose field will feature an artificial turf surface, lights, seating for 1,000 fans and an enclosed press box. The field will be the home for the football, men”™s lacrosse, women”™s lacrosse and women”™s soccer programs. The multipurpose field and the renovations to Peter X. Finnerty Field are all expected to be completed by the end of this year.

A new softball field with a grass surface, expected to be completed by fall 2015, will be built in the southwest corner of the Pleasantville campus, adjacent to the Taconic State Parkway.

Last October, Pace University broke ground on the first phase of its project to transform the 200-acre Pleasantville campus. In addition to the new athletic facilities, construction is underway on two new residential buildings, an expanded student center and a new environmental center.

The project will enable Pace to consolidate functions that are now split between campuses in Pleasantville and Briarcliff. Currently, 690 students reside on the Pleasantville campus and 590 in Briarcliff Manor. The 35-acre Briarcliff campus, which Pace opened in 1977, is for sale.