Norville Center for Intercollegiate Athletics and Gentile Arena
SCB has enjoyed a long-standing relationship with Loyola University Chicago, including several commissions for the University’s athletics program. SCB was commissioned by Loyola in 1996 to design the Joseph J. Gentile Center as a 5,200-seat arena. Then in 2011, as part of a campus-wide campaign to revolutionize student life, SCB delivered a cutting-edge renovation of the arena to accommodate Loyola’s growing number of students and fans, now hailed as one of the top athletic facilities in the Midwest.
That same period, in continuing with their reputation for developing top athletic facilities, Loyola University Chicago called SCB to the table to develop a brand new athletic facility to accompany their new and improved Gentile Arena. The Norville Center for Intercollegiate Athletics is a three-story 75,000 SF athletic facility that supports the University’s varsity athletic programs. The building houses a student-athlete academic center, a state-of-the-art strength and conditioning training center, a sports medicine center, coach’s offices, and modern locker rooms for the home and visiting teams. The completion of the Norville Center, along with the renovation of the Gentile Arena center marked the first two milestones of Loyola’s campus-improvement campaign, which includes seven developments in all.
The Gentile Arena is a state-of-the-art sports arena that serves as the new home of the Loyola University Ramblers sports program. The 45,000-square-foot arena is used for men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball, as well as Loyola special events (including commencement) and Rogers Park-Edgewater neighborhood gatherings, concerts, and performances. The arena’s unique design allows the space to be configured for a variety of crowd sizes and events. Initial tiered bleachers retract hydraulically to open up the space or change to dual court events. For a more intimate setting, large blackout draperies can be lowered to cordon off tiers of seating. The arena concourse features new concession stands, restrooms, locker rooms, hospitality rooms, and storage areas.
