Lakefront Athletics and Recreation Complex is a sports and recreation complex on the main campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. It contains both facilities for general student body fitness and recreation, as well as facilities dedicated to Northwestern Wildcats sports programs (the university's teams in the Big Ten Conference of NCAA Division I). Wildcats facilities include competition and practice venues, training and team meeting facilities, offices, locker rooms, dining facilities, and an academic support services center.
The complex traces its history to the opening of the Henry Crown Sports Pavilion in 1987 and the opening of an adjacent sports field complex in 1997. In the 2010s, the existing facilities were renovated and new facilities added to the complex, which was collectively dubbed the "Lakefront Athletics and Recreation Complex". The project elevated the complex into a main hub for all student athletics program.
Location The complex is located at the north end of Northwestern University's main Evanston Campus, abutting the shore of Lake Michigan.
History
Original construction In 1987, Northwestern University opened the Henry Crown Sports Pavilion, which contained sports facilities including the Norris Aquatics Center.
In 1997, fields were constructed on the lakefront near the sports pavilion as part of what was originally known as the "Leonard B. Thomas Sports Complex". The multi-field complex was built at a cost $3.5 million to provide home fields for the university's soccer, lacrosse, and field hockey programs on the university's main campus. In 2000, the university began construction on the $10 million Combe Tennis Center, an expansion of the Henry Crown Sports Pavilion that added a six-court indoor tennis facility.
Mid-2010s renovations and expansions
In 2010, the university announced a materplan to redevelop the complex with the addition of a new practice facility. A study by the architectural firm Populous was presented to university trustees the following year. The initial plans were to build a new multipurpose practice facility that would host both indoor sports practices, and contain 2,500 seats that would allow it to hold events. The plan also included a new 1,200 car parking structure, to be built atop existing surface parking lots to the west of the sports pavilion. Plans also included the construction of a new outdoor practice field, a new diving well in the Norris Aquatics Center, and the addition of new locker rooms, weight rooms, fitness facilities, and sports medicine facilities. The planned expansion was estimated to cost $220 million. The proposal faced some criticism both over its high cost and its use of a scenic piece of the campus' lakeshore for the purposes of serving the university's athletics programs rather than its academics program. Despite such critiques, the plan was approved. In November 2012, university trustees voted to advance the plans to expand the lakefront sports facilities. Due to its lakefront location, the project needed a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, as well as permissions from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
The parking garage component of the project faced some resistance and delay in approval from the Evanston Preservation Commission.
Groundbreaking for the project took place in November 2015. Using funding gifted during its "We Will. The Campaign for Northwestern" fundraising campaign for campus facilities upgrades, the university renovated and expanded its existing lakefront facilities, and constructed new facilities to transform the corner of campus into the newly dubbed "Lakefront Athletics and Recreation Complex". The project included the construction of the Ryan Fieldhouse (which houses Wilson Field, an indoor training field), and the Walter Athletics Center (which houses support services for student athletes and offices for various sports programs). The project finished with the August 2018 opening of the Ryan Field House and the Walter Athletics Center.
Henry Crown Sports Pavilion
The first portion of the complex to be constructed was the Henry Crown Sports Pavilion, which opened in 1988. It is alternatively known as the Henry Crown Sports Pavilion and Aquatics Center, or the "SPAC". The facility is a multi-building athletics and recreation which features a fitness center, weight room, basketball and racquetball courts an aquatics center, and other sports facilities. In 2002, an indoor tennis facility was added in a newly constructed fourth building. The pavilion is located along Campus Drive, and is the main sports recreation center on campus. It is , and includes the Norris Aquatics Center and the Combe Tennis Center. It is also structurally connected to Ryan Fieldhouse, the Walter Athletics Center, and the North Parking Garage.
Student recreation and fitness facilities The pavilion facility includes facilities for basketball, swimming, squash, racquetball, tennis, group exercise, cycling, weight lifting, and general cardio along with exercise-related activities and programs. It was renovated in 2014 to include an additional , new studio space, and new exercise equipment. In 2018, new cardio machines were added to the facility. Additionally, the university opened three new recreational basketball courts and a new three-lane jogging track. These replaced the venue's previous recreational basketball courts and indoor running track, which had been located in a building which was demolished in order to make way for construction of the Ryan Fieldhouse.
Norris Aquatics Center The Dellora A. and Lester J. Norris Aquatics Center is a natatorium located inside of the Henry Crown Sports Pavilion. Its street address is 2311 Campus Drive. It is the home venue of Northwestern University Wildcats Swimming and Diving. It is the location of all their home meets. The center, named for Dellora A. and Lester J. Norris, includes a 750,000-gallon, a 50-meter-by-25-yard pool (Olympic size swimming pool) with movable walls that run on a track system, allow for the pool to be custom-fitted. The facility also includes a heat recycling system, and an electronic scoreboard. It seats 800 spectators. The depth of the swimming pool ranges from to . The facility also has a diving towers with both diving boards and diving platforms. The facility also contains saunas, locker rooms, and family changing rooms (the latter to accommodate public use). The facility has windows offering scenic views of Lake Michigan. Additionally, the facility has an outdoor patio and sundeck overlooking the lake and an adjacent beach.
The pool opened with the Henry Crown Pavilion in 1987. It was renovated in 2012, with its pool deck and bleachers refurbished, an ultraviolet-based disinfectant system being added, and the facility's electrical work being updated. The building was constructed with cast-in-place concrete foundations. Its structure used steel columns that were covered by precast concrete panels, and exterior walls built of precast insulated concrete panels. The pool is located at ground-level, with the slab of the pool deck having been built of cast-in-place concrete, which was then covered by mortar-laid ceramic tiles. The pool originally featured three underwater windows, though these were removed during the 2012 renovations. During the late-2010s renovations of the lakeside complex's facilities, the natatorium was expanded. Additions included the construction of a new dryland training space, new locker rooms, new coaching offices, and a new multi-use meeting space.
In addition to being used by the university swimming and diving program, it is also used for recreational purposes by students and the greater public.
The facility was used for diving competitions during the 2006 Gay Games. It has previously hosted the United States Swimming Elite National training camp. It also was the site of the 1999 Swim Meet of Champions event, pitting the United States national swimming team against a team of Big Ten swimming all-stars.
Combe Tennis Center The Combe Tennis Center, an indoor tennis facility was completed in 2002, adding a fourth building to the Henry Crown Sports Pavilion and Aquatics Center The facility is the home venue of indoor matches of Northwestern Tennis. It features six courts with electronic scoreboards and a main team scoreboard. The facility also includes spectator seating on a balcony overlooking the courts with unobstructed views of each match. In 2020, the athletics and recreation facility underwent renovations to its ceiling and lighting. The facility is named for former Northwestern tennis player Ivan Combe, who played for the university from 1931 to 1933. The Intercollegiate Tennis Association named the Combe Tennis Center the "2002 Outstanding Facility".
North Campus Parking Garage As part of its mid-2010s renovations, a 1,125-capacity parking garage was constructed in the complex, just to the west of the Henry Crown Sports Oavilion. The structure housing the garage also included new recreational programming space for the SPAC, including classrooms, a weight room, fitness studios, and offices.
Northwestern touted the parking structure as fitting into its vision to push on-campus parking towards the edges of the campus in order to pedestrianize the inner-reaches of the campus. Besides its east exterior, most of the garage's exterior is glass-enclosed. Currently, more than 500 spaces in the garage are reserved for permit-holders.
The Garage business incubator An approximately portion of the parking structure was converted into a space to house an innovation and business startup incubator dubbed "The Garage". The incubator space was designed by the architecture space Gensler,Multiple sources: and opened in June 2015.
Outdoor athletic fields In 1997, at a cost $3.5 million, the university constructed a multi-field sports complex that was then initially as the "Leonard B. Thomas Sports Complex". The complex was alternatively known as the "Leonard B. Thomas Athletic Complex", or the "LBT". Built adjacent to the existing Henry Crown Sports Pavilion, these fields were constructed to provide home venues on the campus for the university's lacrosse and field hockey programs. Soccer and lacrosse shared a grass turf in the complex, while field hockey was given a separate dedicated artificial turf field.
The site of the fields boasts views of Lake Michigan and distant views of the Chicago skyline. The complex was renovated in 2016 in a project that also added an outdoor football practice facility. Prior to this renovation, the soccer and lacrosse field had been referred to as "Lakeside Field", the same name also used for the adjacent field hockey venue. While the field hockey venue has continued to use that name, after the renovation the soccer and lacrosse field has been known as "Martin Stadium".
Martin Stadium
Lanny and Sharon Martin Stadium is an outdoor sport and recreation facility, home of Northwestern soccer and lacrosse games. Martin Stadium underwent renovations and reopened on March 8, 2016.
The venue pregioisly had a capacity of 2,000 spectators.
On April 10, 2024, the university announced that a temporary facility would be constructed as part of the complex to serve as the football team's home stadium for the 2024 and 2025 seasons while a replacement for Ryan Field is built.
In 2025, the stadium was announced as the host of the 2026 NCAA Division I women's lacrosse semi-finals and national championship. The facility is planned to be the home venue of the Chicago Stars FC professional women's soccer team of the NWSL during its 2026 season.
Lakeside Field