(03-27-2018 10:57 AM)hiroshimacarp Wrote:  It shows how much people don’t care about a. Drexel athletics and b. Squash that this has been a year in the making and none of us knew about it.

It’s almost like squash is our pet project. So much so that we’ll cough up a place that would be perfect for sports that anybody cares about.

If squash were as popular as el Presidente and Big Z think/wish it is, this wouldn't have been released through the US Squash website. From checking out The Triangle and main Drexel websites, I see nothing that says the university community is aware of these plans. So when all of the money was raised for this and it was announced, and the students raised bloody hell over losing rec space, Fry could simply say that the project had been public for a year if only you had bothered to check out US Squash's website. It's a shady, BS move, but it seems to follow how Hess Labs and the Intercultural Center were dealt with too.

If you read up on the genesis of the Armory project, apparently the subject was first broached with the National Guard in 1998. It's important to remember that while it would have greatly benefited the athletics programs that would have called it home, it was also meant to be a larger gathering space for a growing university population for Convocation, Commencement and bringing in touring acts. Drexel had an average undergrad population of about 8500 students from 84-85 to 99-00. The DAC could hold about 30% of that. Drexel currently has about 15500 undergrads, the DAC can now only hold about 16% of the population. The next biggest space, the Main Auditorium, only seats 900. There doesn't appear to be any open place on campus that isn't spoken for some other initiative that could hold a multi-purpose building.

I know we've blown money on updating the DAC, but in the back of my mind I assumed it was just to buy time until the Armory could be looked at again, as that building just makes so much sense. To just, essentially, give it away for a pet project is monumentally stupid.