Zach Osterman

zach.osterman@indystar.com

IU's basketball home will now be referred to as Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall

BLOOMINGTON — If Assembly Hall's renovation is the infrastructural crown jewel of Fred Glass’ tenure – and it likely is – then its new south lobby is the gleaming center stone.

It is expansive, inviting of sunlight, with wide windows onto the Assembly Hall floor, shiny new escalators and trophy cases to give the place an “Indiana high school gym feel,” according to IU’s athletic director.

"I think this is gonna be one of those gifts that keeps on giving,” Glass said of the new south atrium, the most visible change to the newly renovated 45-year-old building. "A new front door facing campus, to really be where you arrive.”

Clad in khakis and an IU pullover, Glass walked reporters through the building that will on Friday officially become Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, renamed for Indianapolis philanthropist and IU alumna Cindy Simon Skjodt, whose $40 million gift has helped fuel a sweeping capital campaign across Glass’ department.

Glass smiled widely as he ran through a tour that took more than an hour. He covered changes to the building ranging from the new atrium to new club-level amenities, to newly replaced seats, to the Mark Cuban Center for Sports Media and Technology, to a new scoreboard 500 square feet larger than its predecessor, all the way down to the 128 additional urinals and toilets installed throughout the building.

There are also new decorative pieces, like the arena’s old scoreboard, which has been cut in half and placed on either side of the south atrium. During games, it will be fully operational.

Fans can scroll through a wide-ranging database of ex-IU players, and even former Indiana All-Stars, on one of a number of touch screens in that new lobby. The old Assembly Hall center court logo and basket stanchions will hang in the north lobby.

The arena itself will officially be reopened with Friday’s dedication, and fans can tour its north and west lobbies from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, before IU’s homecoming game.

“We'll be judged by others and that's how it should be,” Glass said. “But I think this has been a very successful project.”

That it has come in on time and on budget will make any number of athletics employees smile.

Now coming up on the end of his eighth year as IU’s athletic director, though, Glass will indulge himself in nostalgia. He’s a two-degree IU alum who met his wife in Bloomington. His lens extends through the eyes of the average fan.

“This means a lot to people, even transcending basketball,” Glass said.

There was a time when renovation wasn’t likely. As recently as 2007, the university’s board of trustees declared the building should be replaced, even going so far as to tour newer arenas at other major universities to get an idea of what should go into whatever came after Assembly Hall.

Economics and Glass’ insistence on preserving what he tirelessly calls “the best home-court advantage in college basketball” changed IU’s course. In 2013, he began initial fundraising for a capital campaign meant to unite the entire athletics campus (except swimming and diving) and bring infrastructural spending during his tenure to a quarter of a billion dollars by the university’s bicentennial in 2020.

Assembly Hall’s renovation was always at that campaign's center.

“I grew up going to Assembly Hall, always been a huge IU basketball fan,” Glass told IndyStar. “There’s a lot of things that we want to get done and I think will get done, and I’m proud are getting done, but Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall’s a big deal.”

It’s why Glass is eager to tell you how his wife’s observation that more alumni would come through the north lobby led to the installation of escalators there, as well as in the south end.

Why he’s happy to brag that all money from the new Spirit of ’76 Club – which requires a minimum $25,000 donation, plus $1,500 per pair of tickets – will go directly into IU’s scholarship fund, not into building maintenance as originally planned.

Why he’s hardly worried about the 250-seat decrease in capacity since renovation, with the arena down to 17,222 overall.

Why he's excited to recount the story of the season ticket holder who told him he’s asked his children to "put (his) ashes in a Big Gulp" and sprinkle them on his seats when he dies.

IU's Fred Glass looks beyond Assembly Hall renovation

While he has worked hard to separate emotion from business in his job, at his core, there is a part of Glass that will always relate to IU fans in that way.

He still talks about other goals, like restoring men’s basketball to national prominence, building a more competitive football program and finishing off as many as four other facilities projects. But for Glass, who is 57 and wants to work to 65, Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall is a banner achievement.

It was once slated for replacement. Now, in the eyes of the driving force behind its renovation, it has been renewed for another generation.

“I've been heartened,” he said, “by a couple of guys who said, ‘You know man, I didn't really like the idea of renovating Assembly Hall, but this feels like home.’ ”

Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.