University of Iowa women's rowing team moving into new boathouse

The University of Iowa women's rowing team will move into its new $7.33 million boathouse next week, senior associate athletics director Jane Meyer said Thursday.

The boathouse is named after former Iowa women's basketball player P. Sue Beckwith, who donated $1 million toward what Meyer calls a “state of the art” facility. Meyer also touts the facility as the first new green building on the Iowa campus.

Iowa officials will dedicate the building Sept. 18. The athletics department paid for all but $1 million in construction costs. Iowa's recreation department pays for the rest. Iowa's men's club team and the community rowing club also will use the facility.

Meyer said the temperature is kept between 40 and 50 degrees because the building is geothermal with wells in a circle drive that heat and cool the building. The building has heated floors in the bays.

“The way the building is oriented - north, south, east, west - maximizes sunlight,” she said. “It doesn't allow heat into the building, and it doesn't allow heat to go out.”

The two-story building was slightly behind schedule because of the 2008 flood. The boathouse originally was built to absorb one floor of floodwater, but now a split-level floor between the two stories also was built in case of flooding.

The boathouse is located in Terrell Mill Park between the Iowa River and Dubuque Street. The two-story facility is 22,501 square feet. The rowing team currently trains in a vacant portion of a building without showers or restroom facilities.

Meyer took three rowing athletes on a tour this summer and said she was met with tears of joy.

“Just to see that excitement is worthwhile,” she said.

Iowa will show off the boathouse Oct. 25 at the annual Head of the Iowa regatta along the Iowa River.