FORT SMITH -- Construction of a new baseball clubhouse at the University of Arkansas and two UA track and field facility projects will move forward after trustees approved the selection of design and construction teams Thursday.
The baseball clubhouse for athletes and coaches will cost an estimated $20 million to $25 million and be built at the southwest corner of Baum Stadium, according to documents presented to the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees.
The track and field projects involve an estimated $15 million to $20 million renovation to the university's indoor Randal Tyson Track Center -- including reconfigured seating for fans -- and an estimated $8 million-$10 million support building for track and field athletes and coaches.
"In an ideal world, we'd start construction on all three projects in the fall of 2019," UA Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek said Wednesday, explaining that design work will need to take place first.
To pay for the project, the university plans to rely on three sources: a bond issue, gifts from donors and athletic revenues, board documents state.
"We'll raise as much as we can for those three projects. Right now we're trying to finalize lead gifts for all three projects," Yurachek said.
No general university dollars will be used for the projects, according to documents presented to the board, with the bonds to be amortized, or paid off, through money available from expiring debt related to other athletics projects.
Athletics bond debt totaled about $223 million in principal and interest as of June 30, 2017, according to the university's most recent financial report. No athletic bonds have been issued since that date, UA spokesman Kevin Trainor said, while a total of about $22.4 million has since been paid in debt service to reduce the remaining principal and interest.
"Athletics will retire another $45M in debt over the next 5 fiscal years," Trainor said in an email.
Payments to the debt are made using what are called pledged revenues. A bond statement from 2016 describes UA athletics pledged revenues as including money from men's intercollegiate athletic events as well as other sources, such as athletic conference distributions and Razorback Foundation "priority seating proceeds."
The estimated cost of the approximately 40,000- to 45,000-square-foot Baseball Performance Center at Baum Stadium is about three times the $6.74 million in inflation-adjusted dollars reported as the cost to build Baum Stadium at the time of its opening in 1996.
Board documents describe a study done in February by consultants "hired to study the team areas within the stadium that are used daily" by athletes, coaches and staff.
The study identified "immediate needs" as including "improved and expanded locker rooms, team room, weight room, equipment, training room, meeting rooms, nutrition space, player development spaces, in-venue batting cages and pitching development spaces, and coaches' offices," according to board documents.
The design team will be WER, based in Fayetteville and Little Rock, and Dallas-based HKS, according to the university. Kinco Constructors, with offices in Springdale and Little Rock, will be the general contractor.
The project would be larger in size than what was reported in 2016 by the Chicago Tribune as a 30,000-square-foot renovation to the clubhouse used by the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field.
In 2015, UA completed construction of the Fowler Family Baseball and Track Training Center, described at the time as costing about $9 million. The 52,000-square-foot structure includes a practice infield, according to online information published by the university.
Baseball-only projects at other universities include an operations center at Clemson University's Doug Kingsmore Stadium. The State described it as a 20,000-square-foot, three-level building. The cost of that baseball operations center, completed in 2015, was $9 million, said Brian Hennessy, a Clemson spokesman.
The renovation and expansion of the indoor Randal Tyson Track Center will be designed by Polk Stanley Wilcox, which has offices in Fayetteville and Little Rock, and Kansas City-based Populous. CDI Constructors will be the general contractor on the project, according to UA.
The track and field center, originally built at a cost of about $8 million, opened in 2000.
Yurachek said the track and field center will host the 2021 NCAA indoor championships.
"That's one of the main focal points of why we're doing that project, is to prepare it and make it the best for that 2021 national championship," Yurachek said.
He said the work will be done in phases, with construction paused to allow for the 2020 indoor track and field season, but with the project to be completed early in 2021.
The new Track and Field High Performance Center will be built near John McDonnell Field and Walton Arena. Hufft, based in Bentonville, and AECOM, based in Kansas City, Mo., will design the facility, with Flintco, which has offices in Springdale and Tulsa, Okla., will manage the construction.
NW News on 11/16/2018