Students and faculty came together Friday to officially break ground on Ohio State’s new recreational and intramural sports complex, Lane Avenue Park.The $3.2 million complex is set to open in spring 1999.”Lane Avenue Park is the first phase of modernizing OSU’s recreational facilities,” said Holly Smith, an OSU student member to the Board of Trustees.Mike Dunn, director of recreational sports, said the facility will be a first-class development. “It should be a really outstanding edition to the Ohio State University, he said.”The facility, located on the southwest corner of Lane Avenue and Kenny Road, encompasses nearly 40 acres of athletic space. The existing intramural fields on King Avenue will be eliminated with the construction of two ramps extending from Route 315 to Ninth and 12th Avenues in the next three to four years. Because of the lack of intramural facilities and the number of students participating in them, Lane Avenue Park was a necessity, said Fred Beekman, retired director of recreational sports.Many club teams at OSU said the existing facilities are not large enough to allow them to host tournaments. The new park will give them the opportunity.Matt Highland, captain of OSU’s men’s soccer club said, “We don’t have enough fields to have big tournaments like we want or we may have conflicts with the girl’s [soccer] team. I think it’s going to open up a lot of new possibilities for us.”Aaron Ballenger, a member of the club rugby team, said the new complex should allow the team to host national rugby tournaments.Members of the baseball club, whose home field is at Mohawk Middle School on the south side of Columbus, said they are very pleased with the plans for the park and hopes it will increase exposure for the club.”Looks like we’re going to have a pretty good complex compared to what we’re using now,” said Matt McCormick, a member of the baseball club.Construction of the fields is moving on schedule, said Jim Swartzmiller, a representative of general contractor Cody Ziegler.”Right now we’ve been fortunate in that we’ve had a good dry spell here in the very beginning,” Swartzmiller said. “This job is very weather-dependent.”