Sunday, June 14, 2015
WVU’s MAC moves on to next phase of facility projects
by Mike Casazza, WVU Beat Writer
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS One upcoming project within WVU athletics is a concourse renovation at Milan Puskar Stadium. The project will create more space, restrooms, concession areas and improve the existing box seats.
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — There’s nothing quite as grand as the basketball practice facility or the football program’s weight room or team meeting room on the way, but the Mountaineer Athletic Club is working on the next wave of smaller items to benefit West Virginia.
The history of sparkling projects does make life easier for the athletic department’s fundraising arm, though.
“We’ve got a ton of momentum with the projects we’ve completed over the last five or six years, and donors are excited about the progress,” said Matt Borman, a senior associate athletic director and the MAC’s executive director.
“We can walk them through some of the facilities and the renovations and the construction we’ve done the past few years and show them that when we do something at this point in the history of WVU athletics, it’s going to be first-class and they’re going to be proud to have their names associated with it.”
The MAC’s current priority is redesigning the football team’s practice complex behind the indoor practice facility. The area features a grass field and extra space off to the side for drills. It’s a $1.8 million job, and Borman said the money “came together pretty quickly” after the end of the season.
The grass practice field became a major area of concern last summer when players kept slipping and falling during a preseason practice. Some players said they were worried about their safety on the field. The Mountaineers didn’t use the field again, though they don’t practice there often because the grass wears quickly and doesn’t recover.
Coach Dana Holgorsen has been critical of available practice space for far longer, though. The indoor facility doesn’t have a regulation-sized field, and the building is narrow enough to create cramped practice conditions. Holgorsen also doesn’t think teams should practice regularly in their home stadiums because it minimizes the novelty he believes should be reserved for a game day.
The new project won’t fix all the concerns, but it should allow WVU to practice outside more.
“It’s going to be pretty much the same space up there with a turf and grass combination,” Borman said. “We want to try to get grass up there in some spot, maybe half the field, so we make sure that when we do play a game on a natural surface we have a place to practice.”
Borman said that has to be finished in time for spring football next year, when WVU won’t have access to Mountaineer Field because that’s due to be renovated in the offseason. The Mountaineers will remove the crown beneath the playing surface and put down new artificial turf for the 2016 season.
That project, as well as the more significant concourse renovations, are being covered by the $106 million bond passed last year. The concourse project, which will create more space, more restrooms and concession areas and improved box seats, will likely require two offseasons to complete.
The football team’s training room, which is typically a place WVU skips when giving recruits a tour, is also due for a $4 million renovation. The men’s basketball team will have a complete renovation of its locker room. The corridor that leads to the men’s and women’s locker rooms will also be refurbished. That’s a $1.25 million project, though Borman said one donor stepped forward to fund that alone.
In addition, the men’s golf teams starts playing this fall, and the new sport is a new challenge for Borman and his team. There’s a 2,000-square foot studio in the Coliseum that features a simulator and space for putting and chipping, and that was done without help from the MAC. The MAC’s help is coming, though.
“A golf facility is definitely a priority,” Borman said. “We need to get them a place to practice and hit balls and make sure it’s an indoor facility so they can practice in the winter. We’re still trying to locate a site (off campus), and the price is going to be somewhere between $2-3 million, but we’re looking forward to getting started on that.”
Contact sportswriter Mike Casazza at mikec@dailymailwv.com or 304-319-1142. His blog is at blogs.charlestondailymail.com/wvu. Follow him on Twitter at @mikecasazza.
- See more at: http://www.charlestondailymail.com/article/20150614/DM03/150619619#sthash.VcSdeEYv.dpuf
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A couple things stuck out to me.
As some may already know, when they built the new team theater room, there was an equivalent amount of shell space created underneath it for the athletic training expansion/upgrade. They should be able to make some serious hay pretty quickly with that $4 million dollar project. It looks like they're already working on bids for the new equipment according to the WVU finance site.
It sounds like the practice fields work will be starting soon and would obviously need to be completed by winter for Spring practice since the stadium is going to be under construction. Putting down turf should ideally be done before the bitter cold sets in. As was mentioned here first by Keenan during his series of articles with Lyons, it sounds like they're going to have a full length artificial turf field and maybe a 70'ish yard grass field, plus some areas for drill work, too. He said they could revamp the layout some to become more efficient with the space they have. Sorely needed.
Casazza is saying the stadium renovations could take two more offseasons. Lyons has recently been saying he thinks they'll be done by the 2016 season. That may be optimistic or Mike could be going with what he had been told recently or not-so-recently. Luck thought it might take two, but it sounded like they were trying to expedite that as of late. Or he could be including this offseason. The turf/crown/drainage/geological project will probably take 4-6 months from what I understand with all they're going to do and it will start sometime between the end of the regular season and January 7th.
Vernon and I had shared some stuff on the new golf practice "studio" last week with the TrackMan simulator system, putting and chipping area. If you saw it and read about it, you know it's in a repurposed old dance studio that was vacated when CPASS moved out and into their brand new building. You can tell because it still has the hardwood floors, mirrors and rails. Though nice, it literally looks like they put some golf stuff in a dance studio. I had asked if the current setup may be semi-temporary until the big Coliseum renovations were done next Spring and they could create something more "golf specific". It sounds like they're looking at building a new, off-campus facility just for the golf team. That sounds nice. Maybe at UTC?
Anyhoo, we're really starting to roll with some of these projects and knocking some stuff out. Good times.
WVU’s MAC moves on to next phase of facility projects
by Mike Casazza, WVU Beat Writer
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS One upcoming project within WVU athletics is a concourse renovation at Milan Puskar Stadium. The project will create more space, restrooms, concession areas and improve the existing box seats.
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — There’s nothing quite as grand as the basketball practice facility or the football program’s weight room or team meeting room on the way, but the Mountaineer Athletic Club is working on the next wave of smaller items to benefit West Virginia.
The history of sparkling projects does make life easier for the athletic department’s fundraising arm, though.
“We’ve got a ton of momentum with the projects we’ve completed over the last five or six years, and donors are excited about the progress,” said Matt Borman, a senior associate athletic director and the MAC’s executive director.
“We can walk them through some of the facilities and the renovations and the construction we’ve done the past few years and show them that when we do something at this point in the history of WVU athletics, it’s going to be first-class and they’re going to be proud to have their names associated with it.”
The MAC’s current priority is redesigning the football team’s practice complex behind the indoor practice facility. The area features a grass field and extra space off to the side for drills. It’s a $1.8 million job, and Borman said the money “came together pretty quickly” after the end of the season.
The grass practice field became a major area of concern last summer when players kept slipping and falling during a preseason practice. Some players said they were worried about their safety on the field. The Mountaineers didn’t use the field again, though they don’t practice there often because the grass wears quickly and doesn’t recover.
Coach Dana Holgorsen has been critical of available practice space for far longer, though. The indoor facility doesn’t have a regulation-sized field, and the building is narrow enough to create cramped practice conditions. Holgorsen also doesn’t think teams should practice regularly in their home stadiums because it minimizes the novelty he believes should be reserved for a game day.
The new project won’t fix all the concerns, but it should allow WVU to practice outside more.
“It’s going to be pretty much the same space up there with a turf and grass combination,” Borman said. “We want to try to get grass up there in some spot, maybe half the field, so we make sure that when we do play a game on a natural surface we have a place to practice.”
Borman said that has to be finished in time for spring football next year, when WVU won’t have access to Mountaineer Field because that’s due to be renovated in the offseason. The Mountaineers will remove the crown beneath the playing surface and put down new artificial turf for the 2016 season.
That project, as well as the more significant concourse renovations, are being covered by the $106 million bond passed last year. The concourse project, which will create more space, more restrooms and concession areas and improved box seats, will likely require two offseasons to complete.
The football team’s training room, which is typically a place WVU skips when giving recruits a tour, is also due for a $4 million renovation. The men’s basketball team will have a complete renovation of its locker room. The corridor that leads to the men’s and women’s locker rooms will also be refurbished. That’s a $1.25 million project, though Borman said one donor stepped forward to fund that alone.
In addition, the men’s golf teams starts playing this fall, and the new sport is a new challenge for Borman and his team. There’s a 2,000-square foot studio in the Coliseum that features a simulator and space for putting and chipping, and that was done without help from the MAC. The MAC’s help is coming, though.
“A golf facility is definitely a priority,” Borman said. “We need to get them a place to practice and hit balls and make sure it’s an indoor facility so they can practice in the winter. We’re still trying to locate a site (off campus), and the price is going to be somewhere between $2-3 million, but we’re looking forward to getting started on that.”
Contact sportswriter Mike Casazza at mikec@dailymailwv.com or 304-319-1142. His blog is at blogs.charlestondailymail.com/wvu. Follow him on Twitter at @mikecasazza.
- See more at: http://www.charlestondailymail.com/article/20150614/DM03/150619619#sthash.VcSdeEYv.dpuf
-----
A couple things stuck out to me.
As some may already know, when they built the new team theater room, there was an equivalent amount of shell space created underneath it for the athletic training expansion/upgrade. They should be able to make some serious hay pretty quickly with that $4 million dollar project. It looks like they're already working on bids for the new equipment according to the WVU finance site.
It sounds like the practice fields work will be starting soon and would obviously need to be completed by winter for Spring practice since the stadium is going to be under construction. Putting down turf should ideally be done before the bitter cold sets in. As was mentioned here first by Keenan during his series of articles with Lyons, it sounds like they're going to have a full length artificial turf field and maybe a 70'ish yard grass field, plus some areas for drill work, too. He said they could revamp the layout some to become more efficient with the space they have. Sorely needed.
Casazza is saying the stadium renovations could take two more offseasons. Lyons has recently been saying he thinks they'll be done by the 2016 season. That may be optimistic or Mike could be going with what he had been told recently or not-so-recently. Luck thought it might take two, but it sounded like they were trying to expedite that as of late. Or he could be including this offseason. The turf/crown/drainage/geological project will probably take 4-6 months from what I understand with all they're going to do and it will start sometime between the end of the regular season and January 7th.
Vernon and I had shared some stuff on the new golf practice "studio" last week with the TrackMan simulator system, putting and chipping area. If you saw it and read about it, you know it's in a repurposed old dance studio that was vacated when CPASS moved out and into their brand new building. You can tell because it still has the hardwood floors, mirrors and rails. Though nice, it literally looks like they put some golf stuff in a dance studio. I had asked if the current setup may be semi-temporary until the big Coliseum renovations were done next Spring and they could create something more "golf specific". It sounds like they're looking at building a new, off-campus facility just for the golf team. That sounds nice. Maybe at UTC?
Anyhoo, we're really starting to roll with some of these projects and knocking some stuff out. Good times.
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