If tentative plans hold, an indoor football practice facility should stand completed by November 2003, ISU athletics director Bruce Van de Velde said.

The facility should cost between $8.5 million and $9 million. And all of it comes from private funds.

Van de Velde said donors and former athletics director Gene Smith’s administration “have been raising money for this for three or more years.”

The baseball and men’s swimming programs were cut last spring, but that money could not have been used to save those programs.

“The donors, when they make the gift, they make it for a capital project,” Van de Velde said.

In other words, private money can’t be used for athletic funds.

The University of Iowa has had a practice facility for a number of years, but Van de Velde said he wasn’t pressured to build because of it.

Nearly everyone in a northern climate has one, he said.

The practice facility will be built over the Astroturf practice field, located northwest of the stadium. The architect has yet to be selected for the project.

Once that selection is made, the architect will make a rendering of his or her plans and those plans have to go to the Board of Regents.

After approval, construction companies will bid on the facility.

Van de Velde hopes the total cost will be under the one projected.

He calls the facility “multi-purpose.”

It will be used for tailgating when the weather gets too trying and for off-season training purposes.

Also, the facility will be used by engineering students for their career fair.

Van de Velde said the students have outgrown Hilton.

Also in the works are permanent lights around Jack Trice Stadium.

Lights mean night games, Government of Student Body president Andy Tofilon said, which means more televised games.

“The more time on T.V., the more prestige is associated with Iowa State,” Tofilon said.

Van de Velde said he had no ballpark figure for the lights, but they are apart of a larger plan.

One which Tofilon noted as well.

Aside from the lights, Tofilon has pushed for more seating at Hilton for students in the arena and parquet sections.

Nothing has been finalized yet, but Tofilon said “the students will be very pleased with that.”

For the cost of the lights and better seating of students, student fees will increase from $18 to $21.

“Every year tuition goes up, fees go up at a comparable rate,” Tofilon said.

Not only that, but the increased fees have been promised by the Student Fees committee since the mid-90’s, he said.

He’s keeping the promise of past GSB administrations.

Also in the works is a videoboard, scoreboard and sound system. Van de Velde said it should cost between $750,000 and $800,000.