U-Conn Trustees Approve Basketball Practice Facility

 STORRS, Conn. — The University of Connecticut’s Board of Trustees have approved spending $3 million in private donations to design a new basketball practice facility, slated for a site behind the Harry A. Gampel Pavilion, the home of the Huskies’ men’s and women’s basketball teams.

 

The project, which has been in the works for several years, has a budget of approximately $25 million, according to the university’s athletics director, Jeff Hathaway. Officials hope the practice facility, which would house basketball courts and weight lifting areas, further boosts recruiting efforts for the school’s already popular men’s and women’s programs. Hathaway has called the facility a “front-burner project”.

 

“To preserve and enhance the future of our basketball programs, this facility is a must,” Hathaway says. “The challenge is how fast, and that’s the part we’re working on right now.”

 

U-Conn hired international sports facility design firm Populous (formerly HOK Sport) in 2008 to begin site planning for the proposed facility, which will be located on the site of the school’s shuttered Memorial Stadium.