Gamecock Facility Upgrades

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The building beside Stone Stadium opens directly onto the field and is the new home for men’s and women’s soccer. The $3.175 million facility houses locker rooms for each team, training rooms, coaches’ locker rooms and a weight room for soccer and other sports.

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That building is ready for the next seasons. Three other projects are scheduled for completion by August.

On the opposite end of the athletic village, Weems Baskin Track is being overhauled. A completely new oval is being installed, with a new building to house operations for meets. The walkway that begins at Heyward Street will be extended to Rosewood Drive, taking pedestrians through USC’s tennis and sand volleyball courts, softball stadium and track.

New structures for the field events will border Rosewood and be ready for the fall season. The price tag is $10.175 million.

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Williams-Brice Stadium is having a new field installed. The $995,000 project will put in new drainage, irrigation and grass and be ready for the 2016 season (USC has a couple of weeks leeway, with two straight road games to open the year).

Where a Bojangles’ restaurant once stood across the street, the area is being cleared for 57 new parking spaces for the new season. “They’re similar to what the VIP North and South spaces are now,” O’Connell said. “They’ll each have cable and power, so that’s going to be a beautiful addition for us.”

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Two more facilities are changing. The media room at Founders Park (on the lower level, facing Catawba Street) will be turned into a players’ lounge. Adjacent to the locker room, it will feature TVs, counter space and chairs.

“We anticipate finishing about January, February 2017,” O’Connell said. “It’s mainly a place for them to go and watch TV, study, have quiet time. A place for the players to gather before and after practice.”

Part of that $975,000 project is a new media room on the second level of the stadium. Beside the windows overlooking the indoor batting cage, the room will be a few steps from the pressbox entrance.

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And, new basketball offices for Frank Martin and his men’s staff are set to be completed by May 2017. Martin is currently housed in a converted luxury suite at Colonial Life Arena; his former office on the second floor of the volleyball court next to Carolina Coliseum was made into a full floor for the women’s basketball staff.

The new men’s offices will be on the bottom floor of the Coliseum, entered from the Elephant Room. The $4 million project will have training rooms for men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball, plus a weight room for all three.

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Then will come an indoor track, set to be completed by Fall 2017. The fieldhouse, currently housing a 60-yard indoor football field and tennis courts, will be gutted with the structure intact. A banked track will be installed for a budgeted $4.65 million, although the project has not been bid on.

After those, a new football operations building will be constructed in front of the new practice fields behind Gamecock Park. The $50 million building will keep football self-contained at the Williams-Brice area.

“We have Phase I approval,” O’Connell said. “They’re doing the design of the building and they’re also working on the final cost. If we get all the approvals and everything goes as planned, it will be done in August of 2018.”

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