Kincaid University broke ground this week on a new athletic complex intended to serve both its rowing and basketball programs, the largest athletics capital project in the private university's history and one officials say has been years in the making.

Kincaid University President Dr. Howard Faircloth said the new complex, which will include an indoor rowing tank, a strength and conditioning center, and a dedicated basketball practice gym, represents the largest single athletics investment in the university’s history. “We have asked our rowing and basketball programs to compete at a high level for years with facilities that were, frankly, showing their age,” Faircloth said at the groundbreaking ceremony. “This is the university making good on what our coaches and student-athletes have earned.”

A gift years in the making

The roughly $22 million project is funded primarily through a lead gift from Kincaid alumnus and former rowing team captain Thomas Bellinger, along with a broader capital campaign that Kincaid Athletic Director Colin Yates said has been underway quietly for nearly three years. “We didn’t want to announce a project like this until we knew we could actually finish it,” Yates said. “Thomas’s gift is what let us go from a wish list to an architect’s drawing to a shovel in the ground.”

Yates said the timing reflects both the program’s on-field success and broader momentum on Kincaid’s campus, where the university’s biotech research has drawn national attention and new investment in recent years. “It’s not a coincidence that alumni are more willing to invest in this university right now,” Yates said. “When people feel good about what’s happening on campus generally, athletics benefits from that same energy.”

What the rowing and basketball programs gain

Rowing coach Priya Bhatt said the indoor tank will be transformative for a program that currently loses roughly ten weeks of on-water training each year to weather, forcing rowers into cramped erg sessions in a converted equipment room. “Right now we’re basically guessing how our technique holds up until we get back on the river,” Bhatt said. “An indoor tank means we can actually watch and correct stroke mechanics all winter instead of hoping it translates once the season starts.”

Men’s basketball coach Aaron Fitch said the program’s current practice gym, which doubles as a recreational facility for the broader student body during the day, has made it difficult to secure consistent practice time. “We’ve had practices bumped for intramural schedules more than once,” Fitch said. “A dedicated gym means our players stop losing hours to scheduling conflicts and start getting the repetition that actually shows up in games.”

We compete in a conference against schools with three and four times our athletics budget. This complex doesn’t close that gap entirely, but it means we’re no longer asking our athletes to overcome their own facilities just to compete.

Colin Yates, Athletic Director, Kincaid University

Not everyone on campus has welcomed the project without reservation. Some faculty members have questioned the timing of a major athletics investment when Kincaid’s tuition has risen faster than inflation in recent years, a tension Faircloth acknowledged directly at the ceremony. “I understand the question of priorities, and I don’t dismiss it,” he said. “This project is funded through athletics-specific gifts and a capital campaign, not tuition dollars, and I think that distinction matters, even if I understand why it doesn’t fully resolve people’s concerns.”

The project’s location, on a currently underused edge of campus near the university’s athletic fields, required the university to relocate a set of intramural fields, a change that drew some grumbling from students who use them for pickup soccer and ultimate frisbee. Yates said the university plans to build replacement fields elsewhere on campus before construction on the new complex is complete, targeting a timeline that keeps both projects roughly in sync.

Bhatt said the rowing program’s recent success, including a berth at a national qualifying regatta, has made the case for investment easier to make to donors than it might have been a decade ago. “Winning helps everything,” she said. “People want to invest in something that’s already proving it can compete. Our job now is to keep winning while this building goes up so the timing lines up perfectly.”

Fitch said he has already used renderings of the new practice gym in conversations with recruits, describing the facility as a tangible sign that Kincaid is serious about investing in basketball even as a Division III program without athletic scholarships. “Recruits used to ask me why they should come here instead of a bigger program,” he said. “Now I have an answer that isn’t just about academics. It’s about a school that’s putting real money behind this sport.”

Construction is expected to take roughly 18 months, with Yates targeting a opening in time for the rowing team’s indoor winter training season. Faircloth said the university has no immediate plans for additional athletics facility projects but did not rule out further investment if the current campaign continues to draw donor interest. “This has been a long time coming,” he said. “I’d like to think it’s the beginning of a different relationship between this university and its athletics programs, not a one-time gesture.”