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An artist rendering of the planned new NJIT events center. (Courtesy NJIT)

NEWARK — More NJIT sports fans will likely be able to take the family to regular home games a few seasons from now, thanks to a recently approved events center that school officials say should be added the the university's campus by 2017.



The NJIT Board of Directors recently approved preliminary plans for a 200,000 square foot "wellness and events center," New Jersey Institute of Technology President Joel Bloom confirmed. The project is expected to cost a little over $100 million, he said.



"It is really going to be a multi-purpose space," Bloom said in a phone interview yesterday. "It will satisfy a variety of needs."



Those include having a space that can fit the school's growing student body, he said. NJIT's current gym, which was built in 1967, can only hold about 1,000 people. It's freshmen class this year is made up of 1,100 students, Bloom said.



"We are a growing university...and we don't have enough space," he said.



In addition to hosting class-wide events, Bloom said the school has been forced to downsize career days, and turn down opportunities to host professional and academic conferences over the past several years because it does not have a large enough venue to accommodate them.



The new facility will be able to hold about 500 tables, 4,000 people during a conference, and 3,500 fans during a game. The current Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center can hold about 1,000 spectators.



The new events center, school officials said, may help the NJIT Highlanders make it into an NCAA conference. NJIT became a Division 1 school in 2009, and is currently the only independent team in the league.



"We need to meet certain standards" to be admitted into a conference, Bloom said. "This arena will meet them."



"I think it could help," NJIT Athletic Director Lenny Kaplan said in a phone interview today. "The conferences we've spoken to, the first thing they bring up to us is the facility."



Kaplan said he hoped the planned building will be the start of a new conversation about joining a conference.



"I think it's probably just one puzzle piece. But, now this part of the conversation is over, and we can find out (what the other concerns about us joining) are."



The school's men's basketball team drew attention to the issue earlier this season when it pulled off an upset win over the University of Michigan. The team's coach, Jim Engles, used the win to argue in favor of NJIT joining a conference.



"These kids deserve to be in a conference. They deserve to have a championship to play for at the end of the season," he told NJ Advance Media after the upset win. "We shouldn't be the only Division 1 basketball team at the independent level."



That game garnered some new fan attention for the school, which Kaplan said might also be helped with the new home facility.



"It's about the fan experience," he said. "It elevates everything we are doing for our student athletes."



Bloom said a school-wide committee is still finalizing the details of the design, but that it is working with the AECOM engineering firm in the hopes that it will be able to break ground by this fall. The building will be constructed on the school's current soccer field. After it's completed, the current gym will be torn down, and a new field will be built in its spot, school officials said.



The new events center should be opened in 2017, Bloom said.



The school is also launching a fundraising effort to help pay for its construction. It is hoping to raise about $50 million toward the cost of the new building, Bloom said.



The donations will be adding to the entire school community, not just the athletes, he said.



"It is multi-purpose," he said. "I think it's important to note that over 59 percent of the building will be multi-use. About 20 percent will have an athletic use."

Jessica Mazzola may be reached at jmazzola@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @JessMazzola. Find NJ.com on Facebook.