Jim Dunlap has sat in a lot of luxury suites in a lot of cities.

He watched MSU's domination of Kent State University on Sept. 3 from a seventh-level suite his company purchased in the new addition to Spartan Stadium, and said he enjoyed the atmosphere of MSU's boxes more than at other venues.

"They found a way to make the walls disappear, the windows disappear," said Dunlap, president of Huntington National Bank's West Michigan Region.

"You're right there with the crowd."

Huntington executives are some of a number of corporate and individual premium seat holders who plan to take advantage of a recent MSU Board of Trustees decision to allow the sale of beer and wine in Spartan Stadium suites and club areas, beginning Oct. 1 when the Spartans face the University of Michigan.

"We use the suite almost exclusively for entertaining prospects and guests," said Dunlap, who leases the suite from Trustee David Porteous. "I'm not at all concerned with (alcohol) abuse, because that's not the kind of clientele we're working with."

Not everyone in the MSU community was so appreciative of the policies connected to the newly opened addition.

"I personally think there should be no alcohol served," accounting junior Arash Ahmadpour said. "If the other people in the stadium can't have it, why should the people in the suites?"

Packaging junior Jim Owen also questioned the decision to serve alcohol to donors, saying it "seems ridiculously unfair."

MSU Athletic Director Ron Mason said that according to market research conducted when the roughly $70 million stadium addition was initially proposed, alcohol service was something the donors who helped fund the project desired.

"It's just a completely different venue today if you try to build something new," Mason said. "When the suites were first talked about here, people just assumed that it would be the same as everywhere else."

Trustee Dee Cook - one of five board members who voted in favor of the measure at Friday's meeting - said she had spoken with a number of suite holders, and none of them thought alcohol was particularly important, although many had been given the impression it would be available to them on game days.

"Once that got out there, I certainly put a stop to that," Mason said, adding that he only told potential buyers the possibility of serving alcohol was "under consideration."

Attracting those suite buyers is part of the plan to pay about $50 million that the university still owes toward the cost of the addition, he said.

"The only thing that it's going to take to sell out is a winning team," said Bill Janis, who purchased eight seats in the club area.

"This whole venue has been so unique ? the whole layout of it has been just spectacular."

He said he enjoys the availability of food and easily accessible restrooms, and the entire club area feels "like one big suite."

Janis owns a manufacturing company in Traverse City, and often brings customers to MSU football games. He said he will definitely be taking advantage of the alcohol service.

"Rather than tailgating down in (the lots) … that whole pre-game gathering will be done up there," he said. "Now to take this to a segregated area, just a controlled area, has a lot of merit."

David Poulson said he didn't understand why the university felt the need to follow the example of other Big Ten schools and serve alcohol in order to attract donors.

"Here is a university that's struggling with an alcohol abuse problem, and a country that's struggling with alcohol abuse, why can't we be a little bit of a leader on this stuff?" said Poulson, assistant director of MSU's Knight Center for Environmental Journalism. "It's sending the message that the only way you can have a really good time is with alcohol in the equation."