By Will Vandervort / Photo courtesy Clemson University .

As Doug Kingsmore Stadium continues to get a new face lift this winter and spring, Clemson fans can expect some noticeable differences in and around the stadium when they attend Friday’s season opener against West Virginia.

For one, 150 premium seats have been added behind home plate, giving those fans a more on-the-field experience than ever before. The dugouts will also be new as Clemson now houses the biggest dugouts in college baseball.

“You can throw a bullpen in the back of (the visiting dugout),” Clemson head coach Jack Leggett said. “You can throw a 50-foot bullpen if you want. They are really nice. They are spacious and they are a lot better than most places we go.”

Of course the most noticeable part of Clemson’s refurbishing of Doug Kingsmore Stadium will be the new Clemson Baseball Operations Center that is going up down the right field side. It’s a $20,000-square foot structure that will continue to be built during the season.

The Clemson University Athletic Department’s goal is to have it completed by the end of the baseball season.

“It is exciting. I think we have some good things coming in,” Clemson outfielder Steven Duggar said. “The locker room is going up so that should be nice for us. The back stop, they did some stuff with the seats so it is exciting to see some changes around here, but I think regardless we are excited to get going. There is nothing like opening day at Doug Kingsmore.”

The new Baseball Operations Center will house the entire Clemson baseball program from a new players’ clubhouse and lounge area, to a new locker room with spacious showers, a dining hall, coaches’ offices and a state-of-the-art team meeting room with a big-screen television with all the latest bells and whistles.

“From a team operations standpoint, from where the players are every day, where you bring recruits in, it will be on par with the best in the nation,” said Joe Simon, Clemson’s Assistant Athletic Director of Facilities Management. “There will be a few places that have a few more seats, but where the players spend their time, where they get better, where they come and have fellowship and hangout with each other, it will be on par with the best in the nation.”

The front of the new Baseball Operations Center will be a lobby and also part of a museum honoring the great history and tradition of Clemson baseball. Simon says as you walk through that area it will lead you to the team area – though that part will not be accessed by the fans.

A players’ lounge—which is two parts—will have a study area and then more of a comfortable couch area where players can watch television or play video games. As you walk through that part of the building, it will take you to the dining area. It will not be a place to cook food, but players and the team can bring in food and eat in a comfortable setting. From there you walk to the back of the facility where you get into the team operations pieces.

The backside of the building will be the showers, while the front side will be the locker room area. The area directly behind the dugout will be a mud-room where sports medicine and the athletic training areas will be. They can also use that space to store equipment.

The second level of the building will be primarily used as a team-meeting room. It will be a large room with 42 seats. It will also have a nice television where players can watch whatever they need to. It will also be used from a recruiting standpoint thanks to a large balcony that will extend off it, giving recruits a great view of Tiger Field.

The third floor of the Baseball Operations Center will house the coaches’ offices with a large conference room as well. There will also be balconies off each of the coaches’ offices so they can observe the field from there.

“I’m excited about showing the place off,” Leggett said.

The $9 million facility, which is right on budget, has not been an easy one to erect. Simon says around 200 pylons have been placed in the ground to help give the structure more support, some are more than 30 or 40 feet deep.

“With as close as we are to the lake and everything, you have to make sure you have a solid structure,” he said. “So really in the coming weeks, you are going to see steel coming up and really start to see a lot of activity above the ground as the building continues to take shape.”

Clemson is asking fans who visit Doug Kingsmore during the season to please enter the stadium from the Chapman Grandstand Entrance (left field side), though they can still access the stadium from the front. But from an aesthetically pleasing standpoint, Simon says the left field entrance will be the best bet.

As for those who sit in right field, especially those in the Cajun Café area, Simon says they have to enter the stadium in left field because once someone enters the stadium through the front side they will not be able to access right field at all from that side of the stadium.

“Down the right field line, there’s lots of construction going on during the course of the season which indicates the progress we are going to see before it is all over,” Leggett said.

Friday’s first pitch for Game 1 of the West Virginia Series is scheduled for 4 p.m.