By Will Vandervort.
Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said earlier this week his program will not be content on staying where it is at, and he meant that literally.
Swinney says he wants his football program to stay one step ahead of its competition. From a facilities standpoint, the Clemson Board of Trustees is making sure of that. The university’s BOT gave final approval at its Winter Quarterly meeting on Friday for a new football facility that is planned to open sometime in the summer of 2017.
The Clemson Insider has learned the project will more than likely begin in the summer of 2016. Clemson, because it is owned by the state and sits on state property, has to go through different building regulations and approvals from the state of South Carolina before the project can begin.
The project is expected to take somewhere between 12 and 16 months to complete.
The Board also gave final approval for the renovations of Littlejohn Coliseum to begin construction, with a targeted start date, again pending state agency approval, of later this spring.
“We’re appreciative of the Board giving final approval to the Littlejohn Coliseum project and initial approval to the football operations center,” director of athletics Dan Radakovich said in a statement. “We will now seek the requisite state approvals for these extremely important facility pieces.”
The new football operations complex, to be located near the existing indoor practice facility, received concept approval which begins the process and allows for the hiring of an architect and further design of the new building.
The complex is set to include a locker room, meeting rooms, coaches’ offices, along with strength and conditioning, sports medicine and a dining area. They will all be located next to the indoor practice facility and existing practice fields beside the Jervey Athletic Center.
The budget for the project is $62 million.
The Clemson Insider has also learned that the current house of the football program—The WestZone-will become the new athletic department administration offices once the new facility is complete. The second floor will house the athletic director, the athletic business department, marketing, athletic communications, video department and facilities, allowing it to be connected to IPTAY and the ticket offices which are already located at the northwest side of the stadium.
Other sports programs, not already housed at their own facilities, could take up residency inside the WestZone as well, but right now those plans have not been drawn out or approved. Currently, the coaches and administrators for men’s and women’s soccer and men’s and women’s golf are based out of the McFadden Building. Every other sport, outside of football, occupies the Jervey Athletic Center.
Men’s and women’s basketball will be moving into Littlejohn once the coliseum has been renovated.
As for the Paw (the dining hall) and the state of the art weight room in the WestZone, they will more than be used by the athletic department staff and other sports when the football program moves out.
Clemson just spent more than million dollars renovating The Paw, the players’ lounge and added a new area for its state of the art recruiting center, which Swinney calls “Clemson Google.”
Though none of this has been approved by the board, one plan also calls to make the McFadden Building, which was built in 1994, to be used as an athletic museum.
As for Littlejohn, which is expected to be complete by the start of the 2016-’17 season, it will include reconstruction of the seating areas, along with new practice facilities, locker rooms, meeting rooms and coaches’ offices for both the men’s and women’s basketball programs.
The trustees also approved the athletic facilities bond resolution for the project, which is slated to cost $63.5 million.
University Vice President for Finance and Operations, Brett Dalton, said neither project will use university operating and facilities funds nor state funding, as both projects will be financed completely by the athletic department and IPTAY.