College Venue News: USC Plans Athletics Building With Production Facility

An 110,000-sq.-ft. building that will house meeting rooms, coaches’ offices, and a locker room for the football program, as well as an academic center, weight room, athletic training room, and state-of-the-art digital-media–production facility for all of USC’s 21 sports, will be built directly west of Heritage Hall on the USC campus, Trojan Athletic Director Pat Haden has announced. Groundbreaking on the project is planned for January, with construction taking about 18 months. Fundraising has begun for the $70 million project, which will include the cost of the building, a maintenance endowment, and renovation of vacated space in Heritage Hall…

…University of Alabama at Birmingham President Carol Garrison said this week that she has instructed administrators to research the possibility of building an on-campus football stadium. “It’s a young athletic program; it’s a young football program,” Garrison said after the second of two town-hall meetings called to answer questions and hear comments about the 2010-15 revision to the University of Alabama at Birmingham Strategic Plan unveiled last week. “I think, as we’ve tried to grow and invest in a university and in athletics across the board, we have gotten to the time and place where it’s appropriate for us to be looking at [a stadium]”…

…Whittier College has announced a multimillion-dollar renovation of the Graham Athletics Center that will enlarge the current pool to regulation size and create a spectacular new entrance to the existing building. “The new renovation will have a profound impact on the athletics program as well as the Whittier community,” said Director of Athletics Robert Coleman. “When it is completed, it will become a first-class facility in our region.”