Virginia Tech Stressing Comfort for Fans, Athletes in Slew of Planned Facilities Upgrades

As the point man for the management of Virginia Tech's athletic facilities during one of the biggest construction booms in the school's history, Tom Gabbard has heard his fair share of pitches from prospective contractors over the years.

Gabbard, Tech's senior associate athletic director for facilities and operations, came to Blacksburg with Jim Weaver back in 1998 and he's helped shepherd projects like the renovations to Lane Stadium and the construction of the massive "Beamer Barn" football practice facility from conception to completion in his time in the athletic department.

Accordingly, he's been around the block when it comes to reviewing designs for new athletic facilities, getting a glimpse at just about every concept drawing imaginable from architects and construction companies hoping to match Tech's unique architectural style.

Now, as the department prepares for another round of ambitious athletic facility renovations, Gabbard told The Key Play that he expects that experience to come in handy in the coming months.

"One of the very first meetings you have, they call it architectural vocabulary, so you say, 'We want it to look like campus, an existing facility that we have,' and we also tell them 'If you don't put any Hokie Stone on it, you'll never get it built,'" Gabbard said. "Nine times out of 10, a guy comes in and he says, 'Now, the guy that's gonna lead this project is a Tech grad,' like that's supposed to mean something, and it does, but they're all Tech grads.

"The beautiful thing is we have a great engineering school and a great architecture school, so any company that's any good has got some Tech grads on it."

Indeed, Gabbard says he's hearing from plenty of architects and engineers with Blacksburg roots these days as the department kicks a whole series of projects into high gear. Gabbard and AD Whit Babcock unveiled the department's roadmap for the future of its facilities at a meeting of Tech's governing Board of Visitors in late March, and in the next few weeks many of those construction efforts will get started in earnest.

From the Beamer Barn to Baseball

Unsurprisingly, the project that's attracted the most notice from that presentation is the one with the biggest price tag: the major overhaul of the baseball team's English Field. The Richmond-based Union Bank & Trust just chipped in $3.5 million for naming rights to the stadium, which will help fund the facelift for the park.

Gabbard estimates that the total cost for the project will be anywhere from $12 million to $14 million, but he thinks the strength of the rest of the ACC in the sport makes the effort a critical one for head coach Pat Mason as he tries to drag the Hokies out of the conference's basement.

"You look at what's going on in the rest of your conference, you feel like you've really got to make some improvements in the facilities, because you're recruiting against people that have more elaborate facilities," Gabbard said. "And it didn't hurt that the AD's an old baseball player, that helps. So in developing that, we had Union step forward with a really nice opportunity to kind of give us a gigantic seed gift to kind of do some serious thinking on it."

As of now, Gabbard said the department is still in the early stages of figuring out what exactly the upgrades to the facility will entail, though he expects additional seats, modernized concession stands and a new scoreboard to be part of the upgrade.

But he notes that he can't say with certainty what the renovation will look like exactly just yet because of how the department is designing the project. Instead of just sketching out plans for the renovation and then accepting bids from companies to work on the project, he said Tech is using the "design-build" contracting method, which centralizes planning and construction responsibilities by giving firms the chance to present Tech with their own designs and letting the department pick the plan it likes best before moving forward with construction.

English Field Renovation | Virginia Tech Facilities Master Plan

Gabbard said that the department used that method as it worked to solicit designs for the indoor football practice facility last year, with great success.

"Whenever you do these, your coach says 'I want what the Atlanta Falcons have, I want what Florida State has, what the New England Patriots have,' and we say 'Fine, but what do you really want?'" Gabbard said. "And you hear, 'Well, we want it bigger than a regular football field, high enough to punt in and all the graphics in the world to sizzle and we want it built the day after tomorrow.' Obviously all those things can't happen.

"And so what we did is, we came up with a criteria document, which said 'Here's what we want it to be, it's gonna be this high, this big, this wide, we want flat walls down the side, we don't want regular steel beams,' and we turned it over to (contractors)."

That process helped generate three designs that the department seriously considered, but Gabbard said they settled on the one that they felt was the most creative solution that was also in line with the university's look. He noted that the design-build method gave them more flexibility in choosing an architect and construction company with a real vision for the project, beyond just picking "the cheapest guy and lowest bid."

"You'd love to have the cheap guy get it, but you're not locked into it, so when guys get a little creative, you may want to spend a little more," Gabbard said. "And what they ended up making was a building that didn't end up looking anything like a typical fieldhouse for football practices that you'd see anywhere in the country, it's really a signature piece."

With proof that design-build could work at Tech, Gabbard says the department sent requests for proposals to "20 major architectural firms in the country" for the baseball facility facelift, and have since identified a handful of companies that seem to have the right qualifications and plans for the project.

The department then brought in those architects, each teamed with a builder, for a series of presentations on April 27.

"Based on the four teams that we had, one of them's sorta close to what we want, the other three are not, but they had great ideas," Gabbard said.

But Gabbard said he's still optimistic about the project's direction, since that initial meeting was just "to see 'Are you thinking the way we're thinking?'" from the firms. Those four finalists will take Tech's suggestions into consideration and present the department with designs in June. Though the renovations may be many months away from actually happening, Gabbard is anxiously awaiting the project's results.

"We're gonna end up with a really neat looking facility," Gabbard said. "And with all that (Route) 460 stuff going on and a new interchange coming in, that's gonna be the first signature piece on campus that you see. Of course, you can see the stadium in the background, it'll sit up above that big VT in the hedges, so it gives the teams an opportunity to get their name on something that's very visible."

Plotting the Futures of Cassell and Lane

Even as those efforts progress, the department is working on several less visible shorter-term projects aimed at improving fan experiences in the buildings hosting the team's revenue sports.

Since Babcock's arrived in Blacksburg, the department's put a huge emphasis on overhauling the interior of Cassell Coliseum (adding everything from courtside seats to an enormous ceiling fan) and Gabbard said that process will continue in the next few months.

He feels most of those changes have been beneficial ones for the building so far (hailing the courtside seats as "revenue producers" and the shift of ADA-compliant seating off the floor as a huge boon for patrons with disabilities) but he sees the next step for Cassell being an upgrade to many of the arena's seats.

"Those old seats are pretty neat, 15 years ago when we redid those, the old Cassell, all those seats were painted three colors: the ugliest white, the ugliest green, and the ugliest maroon in the world," Gabbard said. "So we were gonna replace them all, and for a million dollars, we were gonna replace every seat in Cassell, and they stripped one of them down and it was elmwood, and there's no more elmwood in the world to speak of, so we said 'Let's just put them all back and make them all elmwood,' and that was beautiful for a while, but the world's rear ends are getting a little bigger these days, so we're gonna fix that."

The issue of America's rapidly expanding rear-ends aside, Gabbard said the change will be focused on making seats in the "three center sections" up to the portals to the concourse on each of Cassell's long sides more comfortable for fans.

"Next summer, we're working with four vendors now, we'll take those seats out and replace them with a much more comfortable, bigger seat," Gabbard said. "Those rows now have 20 seats in them, they'll go to 18, but it'll be a 21-inch seat, it'll be a high-backed seat with a cup holder, padded, and it'll be a premium seat, and if that goes well, we may take that theme and take it all the way around."

But Gabbard said the department is also eyeing changes to the building's exterior, particularly along the west side of the arena that runs parallel to Beamer Way. Though he's only in the preliminary phases of designing it, he envisions constructing a new entrance on that side of Cassell to shield fans from Blacksburg's whipping winds.

West-Side Entrance to Cassell Coliseum | Virginia Tech Facilities Master Plan

"We really need to do something, and we will," Gabbard said. "If you're here on a cold winter night, and you come in that gate, and you're sitting in any of the aisle seats in rows 6, 8 and 10, the cold wind, you've got to have your coat on until the game starts. So I want to take that further out into the sidewalk area, not all the way into the road, but move it out. I love the arches, so I don't want to lose that, but tuck it underneath there, have concessions, an entranceway, well lit."

Gabbard noted that that plan is still strictly conceptual at the moment, but he's working with architects to sketch out what it could look like. Once he can knock that project out, he thinks another overhaul of the concourse is in order, after the department last tinkered with it 15 years ago.

"We'll work on the concourse next, and we're talking about maybe some club positions in there, we're talking to an architect about how to do that, we've got a couple ideas," Gabbard said. "We think there's some ways to take some walls out, put some suites in, really modernize it."

Gabbard appreciates that process (along with his plans to add the new padded seats) will shrink the building's capacity a bit, but he doesn't necessarily see that as a negative development.

"We're at 9,900 and a little bit, but if we went to 8,800, we'd be fine, and it's set up in such a way that everybody is so close to the floor that when it's full, it's a rocking place," Gabbard said. "I can tell you that when (Jim) Boeheim was in the Big East and we went to the ACC, and then Syracuse joined, he said 'Ugh, I've got to go back to Cassell.'"

Indeed, between those planned upgrades and the building's history, Gabbard doesn't anticipate the Hokies abandoning Cassell anytime soon, though he thinks there's plenty of other cosmetic changes that the department will consider in the next few years.

"I think we'll be playing with it for a while, because there's always a better way," Gabbard said. "The front, it's a 1965 front, and we need to make it a 20-whatever front...You'll see the floor change, a little bit of change over time and I think over the next few years, there'll be a new look or two that comes there."

It's no surprise that Babcock and Gabbard are working so hard to revamp the team's basketball accommodations after the department poured millions upon millions of dollars into the football program's facilities over the last decade or so — still, there are a few tweaks scheduled for Lane in the next months.

Lane Stadium West Side Indoor Clubs | Virginia Tech Facilities Master Plan

The most notable one involves the department laying out just $15,000 to revamp the west stand club areas closest to the south end zone, partially so the stadium can start selling beer and wine. Gabbard noted that the department just needs to buy two pieces of equipment to integrate beer kegs into the rest of the club area's offerings, and they'll have that ready in time for the new football season.

"I don't see us going further than that with respect to the beer," Gabbard said. "It's controlled that way, although West Virginia's been very successful, in fact they've cut down their arrests and increased their revenue, so instead of sneaking in beer, you buy it. But I think we'll stay just in the clubs right now, the demographic's a little better, there's more maturity and control."

Non-Revenue Renovations Aplenty

Yet even for all those changes coming for basketball and football fans, Gabbard stresses the department is also focused on improving facilities for some of its non-revenue sports as well.

With both golf programs depending on the Pete Dye River Course out in Radford for their practices, Gabbard saw an opportunity to transform a little-used part of the Merryman Center's basement into a new, easy to access hub for golf operations.

"The old wrestling room downstairs has been the storage room of all storage rooms," Gabbard said. "If you wanted to fully equip an office with half-broken furniture, you could probably find it all down there. We've taken all that out, and we have a new floor plan that includes four coaches offices, head coach and assistant coaches in both sports, two little locker rooms, a place to store your clubs, and a nice, big simulator and a nice, big putting area."

The whole project is set to cost around $650,000, and Gabbard is particularly excited about the video simulator area's potential to be a state-of-the-art resource for both teams.

"They come here in the winter and do their workout in the weight room, and instead of sending them on a snowy day to the river course, we can have them in the simulator," Gabbard said. "They're set up so you can play any course in the world, so you can work on your driving, hitting and the putting green will have a little chipping surface as well. So they can come here, work out, take a shower, putt and study, instead of driving to the river course with ice on the road."

Gabbard said the department is "close to pulling a permit" for the project, and once that happens, they could have the whole effort done by this summer.

"We'd like to get that done before August, it's just a 60 day job, the permitting is the hard part," Gabbard said.

As a former tennis player, Gabbard said he's also especially sensitive to the need for upgrades at the Burrows-Burleson Tennis Center up on Tech Center Drive. Though he thinks the whole facility could use some work, he's mapped out an initial set of renovations slated to start before the year is out.

"The worst locker rooms in America are at the tennis center," Gabbard said. "That's an overstatement, but it makes my point.

"The courts themselves are as good as any. What's lacking in that facility, more than anything else is support for the student-athlete, and that's what we're really trying to do in all our sports."

Burrows-Burleson Tennis Center Renovation | Virginia Tech Facilities Master Plan

Accordingly, Gabbard wants "phase one" of the renovations to include a "two-story facility" at the front of the center, which will contain "expanded locker rooms, added student lounges, added study areas, added team rooms, added coaches offices, added training room, and a nice entrance."

"The road's gonna dead end because of the airport, so the plan is to ultimately make that a destination so when you get there, it's worth looking at," Gabbard said.

Gabbard also wants to re-do the mezzanine area inside the center to provide an enclosed training and medical area for visiting teams as part of the initial upgrades, which he estimates will cost anywhere from "$2 million to $2.5 million."

"What we're battling with right now is one of the walls in there is fire rated, and it's the wall we want to make glass out of, so we're trying to get through that, but that's the old code issue, but we'll get through it," Gabbard said. "We've had an architect that's taken it this far, but until we solve the fire problem, which will happen in the next month, then we'll turn him loose and come up with some more creative stuff. He's got the floor plans right, we're just gonna move some things around."

Looking further down the road to what Gabbard dubs "phase two" of the center's future, he sees the potential for radical changes to the seating areas around the team's outdoor courts.

"You've got a hill there, I'd like to terrace that hill like we've done with baseball, make that a nice viewing area," Gabbard said. "But before I terrace it, I need to decide whether I want to leave the courts the way they are, or tear all six out and put in six in a row and build a stadium. We might do that, so that's where we're at."

But before those grand plans become a reality, the department will also give some love to its Rector Field House, making a handful of changes to the building that it's been planning for a while now (like a new softball hitting facility, a new throwing area for the track team and a redesigned entrance) to kick off construction on all these various projects.

"You'd have Rector, baseball and tennis probably happening real quick together, not exactly simultaneously, but within a year, you'll see all that beginning to happen," Gabbard said. "Rector, we're at the point where we'll break ground on that this summer...and then baseball, we'll break ground on that late summer, early fall. Then tennis will probably roll in there in the late fall, early winter, hopefully, that's the goal."

The sheer number of all these projects might seem overwhelming, but Gabbard doesn't bat an eye at the work. After all, the veteran facilities director has seen plenty of change over the last two decades at Tech, but it's all been in service of the same goal.

"We want the student-athlete experience to be as good as it possibly can," Gabbard said. "We take a lot of their time, we challenge them physically and mentally and it's not the easiest school to graduate from. But when you graduate, you've got a credential or degree that gets you in some doors, so our goal is to graduate students and make their experience as athletes as good as you can make it."