Farnham Equipment Company’s relationship with Youngstown State University has grown throughout the fifteen years. Over that span, YSU consistently requested FEC to repair, replace, and maintain their existing bleacher seating at the Beeghly Center. Beginning in 2021, YSU and Farnham began conversations concerning a large fundraising campaign to purchase new bleachers for the Beeghly Center. The school realized that the bleachers, installed in 1983, had outlasted its lifecycle and were in need of replacement.
Over the course of the next few years, YSU and FEC collaborated to ensure that the school’s vision of this new seating matched what FEC was able and willing to provide, coupled with the continued service and maintenance after its installation. The long-standing consistency, expertise and product knowledge set FEC apart from the school, paving the way for them to purchase this through Sourcewell, a national cooperative purchasing contract.
FEC provided a turn-key solution for the new seating at Beeghly Center through Hussey Seating Company. Working alongside the school, the project management team at FEC navigated several hurdles and tight deadline windows to remove and dispose of the existing seating prior to the installation of new seating. The school opted to have four separate banks of seating replaced, amounting to over 3,000 seats for spectators. Throughout the seating, there is a mixture of courtside seats along with more “VIP” level seating through metro chairs with custom cup holders. The seating came with auto-rotating aisle rails to ease opening and closing operation and front rails to separate the spectators from those on the ground floor. On the upper mezzanine bleachers, courtside backrests were installed to give more comfort to those sitting and watching the action unfold beneath them. To ensure a great location for filming YSU basketball, a semi-permanent media platform also was installed by FEC.
This project is one of the largest bleacher projects in FEC’s history. Through a long-standing relationship with YSU, what began as regular maintenance and service eventually turned into a large direct bleacher project. YSU utilized Farnham’s product knowledge, design resources and the opportunity to purchase direct through Sourcewell to completely revamp the Beeghly Center for decades to come. With that, Farnham Equipment Company and YSU were thrilled to continue their partnership through regular maintenance, service, repairs, and anything else the school may need along the way. The Beeghly Center is a great source of pride and joy, not only for Youngstown State University, but also for Farnham Equipment Company in 2024.
The full project gallery for the new Beeghly Center seating is visible below.
