Creighton University on Thursday announced a $300 million project to upgrade and build athletic and recreation spaces on the eastern part of campus, including a new student fitness center, a sports performance facility and upgrades to current athletic structures.
The campaign, called Fly Together, already has a $100 million gift from the Heider Family Foundation and an additional $105 million from other donors. According to the announcement, the Heider Family donation is the largest gift in Creighton’s history. The project will be fully donor-funded.
Daniel Hendrickson, president of Creighton University, said the project is part of a larger plan to focus areas of campus as different neighborhoods or districts, including academics, residential and recreation.
“The recreational core is the east side of the campus,” Hendrickson said. “We’ve had a hodgepodge of athletic facilities. We’ve had fields elsewhere, so we’re combining fields and facilities for a new athletics corridor on the east edge of campus.”
Hendrickson added that the university is also taking the chance to connect with the Builder’s District east of 17th Street, which has various projects around housing, food and retail and is home to the Kiewit Corporation’s headquarters.
The full project includes:
- Pathway connecting Creighton to the Omaha Builder’s District
- New fitness center
- Upgrades to the Rasmussen Fitness and Sports Center
- New softball competition field, set to be completed this fall
- New baseball practice field, to be completed in 2026
- Softball and baseball team facility, with construction starting in 2026 and finishing in fall 2027
- New sports performance center
- Upgrades to the Ruth Scott Training Center, the practice facility for women’s athletics
- Upgrades to D.J. Sokol Arena Ryan Athletic Center
- Upgrades to the McDermott Center, where men’s basketball practices
Hendrickson said this project supports efforts to recruit students to the university. According to Creighton University data, they had the largest class of freshmen enrolled at 1,248 students this year. Total enrollment was a record-high of 8,914.
“Our pre-med, pre-dental, pre-law students don’t have the time or maybe the capacity for D1 sports, but they have that talent and interest, they have the high school experience at a good level of athletic competition,” he said. “We’re building out a premier club sports program for their engagement and participation, and this project helps that.”
The idea for the project started around 2022, Hendrickson said.
“One of my favorite parts of the project is that it uses existing facilities, repurposes them, activates them in a new, fresh way, really to use the full capacity of the facility, not just for instance, for our student athletes, but for the campus community, for other programs, for intramurals, for premier club sports,” he said.
He added that this fundraising project is just one of many Creighton has focused on. Others included investments in academic facilities, student scholarships and faculty-endowed chairs.
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