\n The Woody Hayes Athletic Center is headed for its most significant overhaul in decades. <\/p>\n
\n\tAt a Thursday press conference, Ross Bjork said the Buckeyes hope to break ground on a $125 million renovation project for the WHAC, which has served as the Ohio State football practice facility since October 1987.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tThe project is aimed at modernizing coaches\u2019 offices, team meeting spaces, conference rooms, the locker room, training room and more \u2014 elevating the WHAC to what Ohio State can view as a championship-standard facility.\n<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhat we\u2019re really looking at is the existing building that is on the north side of the building. The offices, the team meeting rooms, the coaches\u2019 conference rooms, Coach Day\u2019s office, the locker room, the training room,\u201d Bjork said. \u201cWhat we want to do is we want to expand the locker room, expand the training room, develop a bigger team meeting room at some place within that structure.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cFrankly, for me, it\u2019s just time to go. We\u2019ve got to get this thing off the ground. We\u2019ve been talking about it long enough, and now it\u2019s time.\u201d\u2013 Ross Bjork on OHIO STATE Renovating the Woody Hayes Athletic Center\n<\/p>\n
\n\tBjork said the primary driver behind the project is space.\n<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cRight now, not everyone can fit in the team meeting room when we have a team meeting,\u201d Bjork explained. \u201cThe individual position rooms are in the same place as the coaches\u2019 offices. So if (offensive line coach) Tyler Bowen needs to have a private meeting and somebody wants an offensive lineman to watch film, somebody has to leave.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\tBjork said the current plan is to build an updated office complex and weight room that would be part of \u201cnew construction\u201d within the current framework, while the rest of the building would undergo \u201ca total renovation.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\tOhio State has no plans to relocate the WHAC, as Bjork noted the program values its location and proximity to Ohio Stadium.\n<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe location\u2019s great. We don\u2019t want to lose that opportunity of that location,\u201d he said. \u201cBut new construction will be part of it, and then a total renovation timeline. We\u2019ve raised some money on it, but that\u2019s why we need some public visibility. We need to get it out to the public. We need to let people know.\n<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOnce we have that, we can really map out a time. It\u2019s not a short turnaround time. You have to design it, you have to go out to bid, you\u2019ve got all the approvals, so we\u2019re probably still 18 months or so from breaking ground. But we\u2019ve got to get the process activated to get the approval started, then we can really put the design in place to have the right building.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\n\tBjork estimated the project will cost $125 million. He said Ohio State has \u201cgifts committed\u201d and \u201cproposals in front of people\u201d that would get the athletic department close to that figure, but there is still work to do.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tThere are also logistical challenges ahead.\n<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cYou have to move out of the building for most of those areas,\u00a0 so how do we stage that? Where do people go in the meantime? What if we\u2019re renovating the locker room and we\u2019re moving out? What does a temporary locker room look like?\u201d Bjork said. \u201cThere\u2019ll be short-term pain along the way.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\tStill, Bjork said the long-term payoff outweighs the disruption.\n<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cFrankly, for me, it\u2019s just time to go. We\u2019ve got to get this thing off the ground,\u201d\u00a0Bjork said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been talking about it long enough, and now it\u2019s time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Woody Hayes Athletic Center is headed for its most significant overhaul in decades. At a Thursday press…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-725628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}