TRASK ON TRACK: Trask Coliseum is home to UNC Wilmington men’s basketball, which plays in the Colonial Athletic Association. (Getty Images)
University will rely on philanthropy to help achieve 2024 Campus Master Plan
The University of North Carolina Wilmington Board of Trustees on Aug. 1 approved a campus-wide master plan that included a prospective welcome center, a new hotel and upgrades to several athletic facilities at the coastal campus.
Unanimous approval for sports venues is one hurdle, but it will take funding to cross the finish line.
“The trustees gave their blessing to where buildings could potentially go, but there is still a lot more work to be done in terms of design, in terms of funding,” said Michael Oblinger, the school’s athletic director. “Now, the hard work begins. There is no funding attached to any of these projects during the approval process.”
UNCW will rely on philanthropy to help meet the objectives of the 2024 Campus Master Plan, according to school officials. The campus-wide initiative was developed to ensure the best use of the university’s physical assets, both developed and undeveloped, to meet the university’s academic, research and outreach goals.
Targeted for completion in the next five years, more than 1,700 students, faculty, staff, alumni and Wilmington community members participated in the Campus Master Plan open forums and online surveys.
Oblinger, who was deputy director of athletics/external relations at the University of Connecticut before joining UNCW on April 1, 2022, worked with global design firms Populous and Hanbury on the athletic department’s future needs.
“We needed to get the athletic feel of what we needed and have them assess where we are,” Oblinger said. “Thinking about this since I arrived has been a priority for me.”
Trask Coliseum, which opened in 1977, is at the top of the list. The 5,200-capacity, multipurpose arena is home to Seahawk basketball, which is the most popular of the 20 Division 1 athletic programs at UNCW. For the 2023-24 season, men’s basketball sold 63,445 tickets with sales of about $650,000.
The school is deciding if the arena will be renovated or rebuilt. The goal as they assess the future of their facilities is to focus on projects that touch multiple sports serving large groups of student athletes and staff. The school has 350 student athletes.
Trask Coliseum went through a $2 million renovation in 2011, covering the installation of chairback seats, a new center-hung videoboard and end zone boards, the first major upgrades since the building opened.
“Obviously, Trask is a basketball facility but there are a lot of programs in there,” Oblinger said. “There are a lot of departments there, so if we move forward with the renovation, or look to do something new, it’s not just our basketball programs which will be impacted, which is good.”
With the popularity of the basketball program, Trask is the most community facing venue on campus, which provides opportunity for fundraising and partner activations.
“We’ve got to talk about how to fund it and what that looks like,” Oblinger said. “It’s obviously a sizable amount of money that’s going to be needed to renovate or rebuild new. We are working through those scenarios right now.”
Other projects include a Seahawk Sports Performance Center accommodating eight sports and targeting a local health care provider as a partner who could provide funds and health services for the athletes.
The master plan’s proposed changes include potentially adding two more soccer fields and a new tennis facility between the fields and Boseman Field, the school’s softball facility.
The 3,500-capacity baseball stadium, Brooks Field, is currently being outfitted as part of a $3.45 million facility refurbishment approved by the board of trustees in December 2023. UNCW’s baseball team is among the CAA’s strongest programs and won the 2024 conference tournament, advancing to postseason.
Improvements to the stadium, which opened in 1988, include synthetic turf, a drainage system, modernized dugouts, backstop and outfield fencing. Designed by CHA Consulting, which has designed athletic facilities at Boston College, North Carolina State and UConn, the upgrades should be completed in time for the 2025 college baseball season that starts in February.
“Facilities aren’t the be-all, end-all but they are an important part of Division 1 athletics,” Oblinger said. “But ultimately, we are going to win with our people. We are going to win with our human capital.”
