While fall 2010 will bring a refurbished home to the teams that inhabit Rose Arena, their location until that time still is a question mark.

The construction process still is ongoing and administrators still are unsure if Central Michigan’s basketball, volleyball, gymnastics and wrestling teams will have to relocate while the construction commences.

“It’s going to be determined as the architectural firm and ultimately when the construction management firm formulate a strategy on how to build the building,” said Athletics Director Dave Heeke.

Heeke said he hasn’t ruled out the fact that part or a full season might have to be played at an alternate location.

“Certainly if you have to vacate the building, we’re going to have to relocate,” Heeke said. “But even if we we’re able to maintain some part of the season in the building while other areas are being constructed, there’s going to be a time when I look at volleyball or some other sport having to be totally displaced.”

Gymnastics and wrestling would be the two of the five sports in question for displacement that would be the easiest to move. Both do not rely on the court surface and could possibly be moved to the Indoor Athletic Complex’s turf bay or indoor track. Both of the sports also will still have their practice facilities in tact during construction.

“Gymnastics is pretty flexible – you can go anywhere with gymnastics,” Heeke said. “And wrestling could go somewhere. Not that it’s the greatest, but we have space.”

The volleyball and the basketball teams would be the harder sports to move. Regulation-sized courts are needed for practices and games. One of the options could be playing in Finch Fieldhouse like they did before Rose was built, Heeke said.

“I think it would be fun if we could get those games to Finch and have a throwback year,” he said.

No dialogue between athletics and groups that use Finch have occurred, which is a main concern among administrators.

“There is a lot of activities that go on in Finch already that we would have to identify how could those go somewhere else,” Heeke said. “How could we live together in that space?”

The construction will not only affect the athletics department, but the entire university. With Rose Arena being unavailable for concerts and other events, it could possibly create a space crunch for almost every campus organization.

“It’s going to affect everybody,” said Robert Ebner, director of university events.

Despite the uncertain future of where teams will be playing and the hassles that will most likely be ahead, women’s basketball coach Sue Guevara said she isn’t concerned with it because of the end result.

“I think it’s very, very exciting,” she said.

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