State of the Plains

AUBURN - Renovation and construction were hot topics at Wednesday's press luncheon with Auburn athletics director Jay Jacobs.

After more than two years of planning, construction on Auburn's new basketball arena is scheduled to begin Monday.

Meanwhile, Jacobs announced that the majority of renovations to the football facilities have been completed.

"What we learned about 2 1/2 years ago when we started looking at the coliseum was that you can't take these facilities for granted," Jacobs said. "We'd been in here since 1969 and had been in the coliseum for 40 years. We proactively put a master plan in place for all our facilities to continue to update them."

In February of 2006, the Board of Trustees approved $11 million for renovation of the football facility.

"We're phasing in things over time, in being good stewards of our funding," Jacobs said. "We are trying to do something each year to continue to improve it. Our No. 1 priority coming out of the meeting was to impact the football players first downstairs with that area. Regardless of how well people do to take care of things, it just gets worn and needs change."

For the basketball arena, facility planning director Randy Byars said the contract stipulates the project's completion in 720 days, leaving an approximate completion date of July 1, 2010.

Though construction begins Monday, there will be an actual ground-breaking ceremony in late August.

In late June, Auburn's Board of Trustees green lighted the project, which was originally to cost approximately $92 million.

Byars noted, however, that construction bids came in at just over $60 million. He had previously allotted $69 million for construction, meaning the project might come in under budget. The final cost could be less than $90 million.

"Now we're looking at add-ons," Byars said. "We were under budget, so now we can add add-ons to it. They won't be major impact things. They'll be minor things."

Byars said the new basketball arena would also be significantly more energy efficient thanks to new features such as computerized lighting and occupancy censors.

Byars said the arena would also include a state-of-the-art video scoreboard, which will cost approximately $1.3 million.

The basketball arena will be north of the Beard-Eaves Memorial Coliseum and west of Jordan-Hare Stadium.

The Lovelace Museum, Auburn's sports history exhibit, will also be a prominent feature of the new basketball arena. Previously, the museum was in the athletic complex. When the new arena opens, it will greet fans that walk through the north (main) entrance.

"The Lovelace Museum was in a box," Byars said. "It had four walls and you pretty much went left or right, but you couldn't go through. In this one, there are no walls. It will be an open format where you can just wonder around. You can get up out of your seat and walk through any part of it. It will be much more open, more free-flow. We are trying to make it less of an old people's touring facility and get the young fans involved."

Jacobs and Byars also led a tour of Auburn's newly-renovated football facilities inside the athletic complex.

Auburn dedicated $5 million to renovating coaches' offices, the locker room and the training areas.

"The coaches' offices hadn't been touched since 1989," Jacobs said. "We wanted to bring those up to date. Put plasma televisions in there. There were plugs still in the floor for the old 16-millimeter projectors. Everything is wired down to our video room, where they shoot it straight to the coaches' computers."

Auburn also revamped its hydrotherapy room, which now includes four new plunge pools - hot tubs, cold tubs and a "super-cold" tub that keeps the water temperature at 40 degrees. There's another pool with an underwater treadmill that also features stairs and currents to present resistance.

While most of the improvements were focused elsewhere, Jordan-Hare Stadium also received a renovation along the second floor of the stadium's west side.