Following a bond passed to give a new gym to Blue Valley Northwest, Blue Valley North and Blue Valley High, BVNW Principal Amy Pressly said Northwest is planning on building a new main gym.

Currently, the main BVNW gym holds approximately 1,552 people. Pressly said the new gym will hold over 1,700 people to accommodate the number of students and staff in the school.

“I’m very thankful to the community for supporting the bond to allow us to have that space,” Pressly said. “I think it will be nice to have a pep assembly where kids don’t have to sit on the floor.”

During the winter, the gym is shared between the men’s and women’s basketball programs, Pressly said. During basketball games, there is not enough seating for students, she said. Additionally, Pressly said the current concession stand for the games is a set of tables with minimal snacks available.

“I think that [it will] just be nice to have an area with a real concession stand, rather than tables,” Pressly said. “It’ll feel nice to have this nice, really cool space for so many things; it’s not just for athletics, different groups will use it [too],” Pressly said.

The girls’ basketball head coach Matthew Shulman says he is very excited for the new gym to match the resources that other gyms around Kansas have. With BVNW obtaining its third gym, the basketball teams will have enough room to practice without having to stagger time, Shulman said.

“The main gym we have now is great, but if we can have some more seats and get something more modern like what Southwest has, [a gym] that has more goals,” Shulman said. “You look at gyms across this state, and you see other schools having 16 goals in their [gyms], it’s envious as a basketball coach.”