Hoop Dreams

New Weatherup Center Fulfills Lofty Goals for ASU Basketball

The $19.5 million Weatherup Center provides ASU’s basketball program with a state-of-the-art practice facility.

By Scott Blair

The world of college basketball is as competitive on and off the court.

Schools compete for the best talent, and part of that strategy is to entice potential players with facilities that serve to better their game while providing a comfortable atmosphere.

The two identical circular locker rooms (one for women’s basketball and the other for men’s) feature cleverly designed wood cabinetry and carpetry emblazoned with ASU’s Sun Devil mascot. (Photo Courtesy Carlos Espinosa)

That’s exactly what Arizona State University’s new Weatherup Center, which opened this summer, was designed to do.

“The spaces, materials and overall design create a competitive edge for recruitment of top national athletes,” says Krista Shepherd, vice president with the Phoenix-based design architect Gould Evans. “Given that the players and coaches spend a significant amount of time each day there, it was important to create comfortable spaces filled with natural light to serve as their home away from home.”

Privately funded with a total project cost of $19.5 million, the building is named after largest donors Craig and Connie Weatherup. While the 48,500-sq-ft project broke ground in May 2008 under the Phoenix office of general contractor Mortenson Construction, construction on the structural steel and masonry building didn’t begin until more than a month later because the contractor was finishing up the adjacent football practice facility.

“There was such a push to get that done for July’s football season, we basically ignored this building for the first couple months,” says Troy Hansgen, project manager with Mortenson, taking what was a 13-month schedule and reducing it to just 10.”

Normally, builders would stand the steel first and then build the masonry up to it, but to accelerate the schedule, Hansgen says crews built the masonry up to 12 ft first and then brought the steel in. Glendale-based Vickers/Hari Contracting was the masonry contractor.

“We also did quite a bit of shift work,” Hansgen says. “We had people stacked in here pretty tight, so we shifted areas so guys wouldn’t be working over the top of each other for safety reasons. In the lobby, for example, we were putting the terrazzo floor in at the same time we were finishing the ceilings. We offset those crews so one would work during the day and the other would work at night.”

The east and west sides of the long two-story building are mirror images, with identical court spaces for men’s and women’s basketball. The central core houses offices, locker rooms and lounges. Other building materials include metal panels, curtain wall and a truss roof system in the gyms.

The building features a two-story central core skinned in a curtain wall and metal panels that houses offices, a/v rooms, lockers and player lounges. Landscaping is desert-appropriate with minimal water requirements.

Each of the two gyms have one full court and two half courts, a free-throw shooting area and three shoot around baskets for warming up.

Both courts feature second-story balconies for visitors and potential recruits to observe practice without interrupting the team.

“The court spaces were built of a series of shifting wall planes that allows the courts to receive natural lighting and breakup the potentially overwhelming masses,” Shepherd says. “The offset panels allow for sunlight to penetrate into the court spaces during the day and for the gym lights to escape at night, creating a unique experience within and outside of the Weatherup Center.”

The star of the venue is the court surface, which mimics the floor at Wells Fargo Arena where the teams play during the regular season. “Ours is computer generated, so now they can reproduce this floor anywhere, whereas before they laid Wells Fargo by hand,” Hansgen says. “Next time they replace that floor, they’ll actually copy ours.”

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The floor was installed with the goal of maximizing spring and eliminating dead spots. First, concrete was shot into place with two perpendicular layers of plywood as a base. The Forest Stewardship Council-certified maple wood flooring floats atop this. “This facility rivals anything else in the country, college or pro,” Hansgen adds.

The building was originally designed for LEED silver certification, but the team is now expecting to achieve gold. Over 65% of project waste was recycled, high-efficiency HVAC systems were used and low-VOC materials were used throughout. Also, with the requirement that all Arizona state buildings receive a minimum of 15% of energy consumed through alternative means, Weatherup Center will have a 138-kw photovoltaic system on the roof, which should provide up to 43% of the building’s power.

“ASU has an aggressive green agenda and has been implementing large solar installations across the campus,” Shepherd says. “The Weatherup Center is one of those installations.”

Visitors and potential recruits can view the on-court action from a second-story coach’s balcony above each of the two identical gyms. The wall planes allow indirect natural light in through narrow window slats. Strategically placed video cameras tape all the action for coaches to review with players after practice -- or even during, via large screen televisions located courtside.

Each circular locker room is outfitted with stained wood cabinetry and a floor emblazoned with the Sun Devil mascot logo. The attached showers and bathrooms, while fitting into the general sustainable nature of the project with low-flow fixtures, are luxurious and comfortable to accommodate the oversized players.

Player lounges feature multiple video monitors, as do the coach’s offices and conference rooms. This network of televisions is equipped to stream just about every basketball game being played across the country. Coaches and players can control the sophisticated audio/visual system to pull up broadcasts featuring their next opponent. There are even large screen televisions next to the basketball courts. “The coaches will record practices, and if there’s something going wrong and the players don’t get it, they can walk over to a large-screen TV right there on the court, the coach can replay it and show them exactly what they need to improve,” Hansgen says.

The dramatic two-story entry lobby hopes to attract top talent with elegant yet clever touches such as the terrazzo floor in the pattern of a basketball, glass handrailings and high-end wood and stone.

While the system was installed by Phoenix-based TPI under a separate contract, close coordination was required because Mortenson’s scope included the electrical and all the pathways for the cabling. “We held weekly meetings and used BIM extensively for coordination, because we wanted to make sure we got the block-wall penetrations right the first time,” Hansgen says.

Meanwhile, Shepherd says the best way to understand the impact of the building “is to listen to the buzz that has been created in the basketball community. Prior to this facility, both teams practiced in Wells Fargo Arena where scheduling was always a challenge given the demand on the facility by other programs. This facility focuses on giving greater court access and practice flexibility for the players.”

Key Players

Owner: ASU Intercollegiate Athletics
Architects: Gould Evans; HOK Sport
General Contractor: Mortenson Construction
Consultants: Paragon Structural Design; Henderson Engineers; CMX Sports Engineers; Ten Eyck Landscape Architects
Subcontractors: Vickers/Hari Contracting; JFK Electrical; Ryan Mechanical; SiteWorks; Spectrum Mechanical & Service Contractors; Able Steel; JD Steel