Xavier College Preparatory began with just Fitzgerald Hall, the first building at Xavier College Preparatory, and has slowly grown to have new facilities like Lutfy Hall, the Activity Center, Founders Hall and Petznick Field. Originally, what students know as Xavier started out as a neighborhood. Recently Xavier has made the decision to purchase two homes on Meadowbrook Avenue, the street next to the present beach volleyball courts, in order to further expand Xavier neighborhoods.
“Almost all the buildings used to be houses. One by one our Dads’ Club would buy them and then eventually we had all this space to rebuild,” said Susan Contreras, associate director of athletics and scheduling.
A year ago, the home next to The Boys Hope, a charitable organization located near the Meadowbrook homes, burned down. Since the original home-owners didn’t want to go through the rebuilding, Xavier was contacted and offered purchase of the land. The school decided to use the acres to expand Xavier by building a multi-purpose field and revitalizing the beach volleyball courts.
This multi-purpose field is to give various teams the opportunity to practice earlier and have more space.
“They plan on adding more space to alleviate the pressure on scheduling,” said Tim McHale, beach volleyball coach. “The lot west of the courts is being converted to a multi-use turf field for all teams to use,” McHale said.
“Lacrosse is out here at 5 a.m., soccer is still going on after school along with softball too. We just don’t have any space. A multi-purpose field would be great to let more teams practice,” said Sister Lynn Winsor.
Beach volleyball, specifically, will use some land to revitalize their courts. One of the four beach volleyball courts does not follow protocol and is unable to be used for matches. This has caused the team to lose a playing arena, just making it a practice field.
Since the courts are located on the canal, there is a curvature on the corners of the court. This makes the court unplayable for matches against opposing schools. To make the court longer, Xavier intends to use one of the Meadowbrook homes to extend it.
“The fourth beach volleyball court is missing a corner, so we can’t actually use it for a match,” said Winsor. “With the Meadowbrook house all four courts will be used.”
Xavier also plans to enhance the court area by adding additional buildings for students and spectators to use. Xavier intends to build a new locker room for teammates to use by the courts. There will also be an equipment room as well as an audiovisual room to store microphones and other hardware. Additionally, a coaching office will be installed.
“We hope to put in a bathroom and an equipment room. We’d love to have an area where we can film our courts and announce our games,” Winsor said.
Xavier hopes to also expand the seating area for family and friends to watch. New lights are also going to be implemented in order to watch the tournaments at night and to allow teams to have late practices.
Reconstruction may take longer than expected due to internal issues. The homes are made with asbestos, and there’s also a gas line, both will take time and effort to remove.
The notable and long-range plan is five to six months for completion.
