Aug. 31, 2007
The University of New Mexico held official dedication ceremonies for its sparkling new indoor practice facility Aug. 29. Speakers included Jamie Koch, President of the UNM Board of Regents, UNM President David J. Schmidly, athletics director Paul Krebs and head football coach Rocky Long.
The dedication was attended by more than 100 patrons, including state legislators, project contractors, athletics department staff and supporters of the Lobo Club.
Funded by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and members of the state legislature, the Lobos’ $7 million indoor practice facility became operational in mid-August after just five months of construction.
“We really want to thank Gov. Richardson and the state leadership for making this possible,” said Krebs. “This facility will benefit all of our programs immeasurably.”
The new facility was designed by the Albuquerque architectural firm of Molzen-Corbin & Associates. The general contractor was The Jaynes Corporation of Albuquerque.
“This is better than I ever imagined,” said Long. “I knew it was going to be nice after looking at the plans, but once you’re inside, it just seems bigger than a regulation football field.”
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 approximately 76 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 will contain 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.