Arkansas Soliciting Proposals for Athletic Facilities Upgrades

FAYETTEVILLE - Arkansas is in the process of putting together a master plan for its athletic department facilities, including an improved football operations building.

Improving the football space alone - either through renovation or addition to existing facilities - is estimated between $10-20 million. No additional price estimates were immediately available, but a master plan would incorporate 15 existing facilities and would primarily focus on new, future projects. Included among those are:

*Student Athlete Development Facilities (including an Academic Center and Dining Area)
*Video Production Studio
*Basketball Practice Building
*Other athletic facility remodel or expansion projects

Other areas being targeted include, but are not limited to: athletic training space, locker room and lounge renovations, meeting rooms, coaching offices and additional parking.

Athletic director Jeff Long and athletic director for facilities Matt Trantham were not immediately available for comment. Long did recently talk in general about facility improvement at an Oct. 19 meeting of the Little Rock Touchdown Club.

Long stressed the needs for athletes and coaches go beyond having a nice game-day facility.

"Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium is awesome; I'm very proud of that," Long said. "It's what I call the infrastructure - locker room, training room, meeting rooms, equipment rooms, those kind of settings, and we don't have the best kind of settings.

"Our [football] locker room situation is divided. We can't even get all athletes in one locker room for the coach to address them. You have to walk through the restroom to get through one locker room to the other. It's those areas we need to provide our coaches the very best. We're competing against the very best; we need to give our coaches the very best."

A request for professional services was issued on Oct. 30, and interested architectural firms are to submit a proposal by Nov. 13.