During its regularly scheduled spring meetings on April 18 and 19, 2008, Denison University’s Board of Trustees approved plans for three important construction projects highlighted by a new 50-meter natatorium.  The expansion will also include an expansion of fitness and locker room spaces, renovation of a housing unit and the college’s chemistry and biochemistry facility.

All three projects are part of an ongoing initiative to enhance campus facilities to meet the programmatic and curricular goals of the college in the 21st century.

Design work already underway for the three projects is most complete for the athletics facilities. These designs will be brought before the Village Planning Commission in the near future. The natatorium will be the first stage of construction, and it’s hoped that groundbreaking will occur as early as spring of 2009 with the goal of having it available for use during the 2010-11 swimming and diving season. It will be located to the north of the existing Mitchell Recreation and Athletics Center.

The combined cost of the three projects is estimated at $59 million.

When completed, the facility will replace Gregory Pool - home to the Big Red since 1949. The six-lane 25-yard facility hasn't prevented the Big Red from producing one of the nation's finest small-college programs.

“We’ve been making a lot of hay out of a pretty marginal facility for decades,” head coach Greg Parini told the Granville Advocate. “I’m fairly confident the new facility will make Denison a more attractive option for the serious student-athlete.”

He went on to tell the Advocate, "It will be one of the finest in the state of Ohio and the Midwest, if not the entire country," Parini said. “It will be a terrific facility.”

The new facility will presumably eliminate the need for DU to offer multiple practice times throughout the day. That means more pool availability, something that will benefit more than just the team and the University.

Parini noted, "It’s our hope we’ll be able to build a facility that helps the needs of the community."

Already, Granville High School officials are hoping to improve their swimming success. Last year the local school was forced to train out of three different locations including Mt. Vernon where, ironically, Kenyon Coach Jim Steen's wife Marcy was formerly head coach.