Aug. 14, 2007
The University of New Mexico’s Indoor Practice Facility (IPF) is open for business. Although construction workers still have a few touch-ups to make on the imposing edifice southeast of University Stadium, UNM received a temporary occupancy permit late last week and the Lobo football team conducted a walkthrough in the facility on Sunday evening.
“It’s an exciting new facility,” said head football coach Rocky Long, who is beginning his 10th season at New Mexico. “The facility will really help us in a variety of ways: we can practice when the weather is bad; we can practice on an artificial surface; and we can conduct closed practices if we need to. Obviously, it’s a huge help in recruiting.”
The $7 million facility was funded by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and members of the state legislature. It was designed by the Albuquerque architectural firm of Molzen-Corbin & Associates. The general contractor was The Jaynes Corporation of Albuquerque.
The facility measures 70 yards wide by 136.7 yards in length for a total of 86,100 square feet. This size encompasses a full football field with a 7-yard run-out on both ends and sides. The building is nearly 80 feet tall with 70 feet clear height along the ridgeline. It’s constructed of a steel truss supporting members with a polyclad fabric in tension stretched over the steel superstructure and also lining the inside of the structure.
The bottom 12 feet of the outside is clad with steel siding panels. The building has steel doors for entries and exits as well as overhead coiling doors for convenience and ventilation during fair weather. The facility contains two filming towers, one at mid-field and one at the north end zone. The entire interior floor surface is FieldTurf.
Although the building fabric cladding has translucent properties, the building is designed to attain approximately 80 foot-candles indoors after dark.