How much will new athletic facilities cost Louisiana Tech?
CORY DIAZ | MONROE NEWS-STAR
Louisiana Tech Athletic Director Tommy McClelland discusses if spring football practice will be able to take place.
CORY DIAZ,
BDIAZ@THENEWSSTAR.COM
RUSTON – Construction for Louisiana Tech’s new baseball, softball and soccer facilities on campus finally took off this past week.
What seemed like a long, pain-staking process to reach the point where dirt started moving, 11 full months after an EF-3 tornado last April hit the Ruston community and the university, where the damage from the storm was centralized at the corner Tech and Alabama Drive where the school’s sports venues were housed, Tech received state approval earlier this month to begin construction on the two projects that will total north of $20 million.
How much of that amount will Louisiana Tech be responsible for in the building of its new baseball stadium as well as the new softball and soccer complex?
LA Tech University unveiled renderings for the renovations for the athletic facilities damaged in the April 25 tornado on Nov. 11.
LA Tech University unveiled renderings for the renovations for the athletic facilities damaged in the April 25 tornado on Nov. 11.
LA TECH UNIVERSITY
“Louisiana Tech has an obligation in that of about $4 million that we’ve got to contribution toward construction, plus an amount that’s non-construction like furniture and computers and things,” Athletic director Tommy McClelland told media members.
To date, McClelland told the News-Star it's not clear the exact amount of money the department has raised since the tornado, but last year $327,196 was pulled in on Tech’s Day of Giving alone. The Louisiana Tech men’s basketball team also hosted LSU for a charity game and event back in November that McClelland estimated generated another $100,000 for the department’s relief efforts.
The remaining funds for the projects will come through a combination of FEMA disaster relief monies, school insurance, Louisiana state appropriation funding as well as philanthropy and donations.
With the process finally beginning, McClelland said the timing couldn’t be more perfect seeing dirt move has been a “great positive” for him and the rest of the Louisiana Tech athletic community, especially after the cancellation of on-field competition amid the growing threat of the global pandemic COVID-19, or the coronavirus.
“That process is going. Things we announced back in the fall, they are under construction now. That is such a positive thing,” he said. “It could be something that could rally us during this period of time because it’s a gamechanger for those three sports and quite frankly for our department.”
Louisiana Tech unveiled the renderings for its new athletic facilities in November when it announced the softball and soccer stadiums would relocate from Alabama Drive to Tech Drive, adjacent to Joe Aillet Stadium. The softball field will be located on the site of the current parking lot next to the Joe, and the former softball and soccer facilities will be converted in another area for parking.
Softball and soccer programs will share a two-level facility between their fields where both teams’ clubhouse, coaches’ offices, meeting rooms, locker rooms as well as equipment rooms will be located.
Originally, Tech had hoped that the new athletic facilities would be completed by the start of each team’s upcoming season. While baseball and softball are on track to be in their new homes by the start of the 2021 seasons, the initial target date of fall 2020 for soccer won’t happen, it’s been pushed back to fall 2021.
“The biggest thing is baseball is site-ready. There was already a field there, so you’ll probably see steel happen there first, not that the other facility is behind, it’s just that there’s $5 million worth of dirt work that’s got to occur as the softball, soccer site before you can do any of the actual construction,” McClelland said. “A lot of dirt work first, site prep at softball, soccer.”
Louisiana Tech was granted special permission from the state of Louisiana to have two superintendents at both sites, something that will help in hitting the target dates, McClelland said.
“That’s a tremendous thing as it relates to continuity of projects. We don’t have to have one guy going back-and-forth,” he said. “That’s a big positive that we got out of that.”
