The UTSA Athletics Department has been approved to build a new $57 million facility to be used as a player development building by the softball and baseball teams. This new facility will include features such as batting cages, equipment storage spaces, pitching areas, updated separate locker rooms and student-athlete lounges, along with a nutrition-based dining hall that will hire staff to cook on-site for student-athletes as opposed to the previous method of shipping food.
During their campaign to encourage students to vote yes to an increase in their athletic fees paid as part of tuition, Athletic Director Lisa Campos announced last fall that UTSA’s Athletic Department would be building a $35 million facility to house both the men’s and women’s basketball teams along with the women’s volleyball team. Despite the majority of students who participated in the voting process voted against the fee increase, UTSA has acquired funding from The University of Texas System Board of Regents for three major athletic projects.
“This is just the start. This is the kind of seed money to do these facilities so we are still going to heavily rely on our philanthropic support or our San Antonio community, our donors, our constituents,” Campos said. “Fundraising is going to be a huge part of this moving forward in terms of the basketball and volleyball facility.”
This funding will not only cover the new basketball and volleyball facility but will also cover nearly 75% of the funding for the proposed softball and baseball facility, as well as the previously approved football training facility.
While a previous approval for a $61 million facility that is set to be built near UTSA’s Roadrunner Athletics Center of Excellence (RACE), which sits adjacent to the nine student recreational, the Convocation Center and student parking lots, there are plans to place a new football training facility near the RACE building.
Now, with UTSA’s newest plan approved for the baseball and softball facility, Campos and president Taylor Eighmy look to keep the facility on campus between both the Roadrunner Field and UTSA’s Softball Field, which is currently home to the previously mentioned nine recreation fields used by students. If the Athletics Department cannot build near the fields, they can resort to the additional land owned by UTSA at Park West that is not taken up by the field, track and parking lot.
“We’ve been talking about this for a couple of years, we’ve been doing conceptual designs and we’re getting to the finishing touches right now. I’m optimistic we’re going to break ground by December. Whether it be December 2024 or January 2025, we’re going to have a shovel in the ground,” Campos said.
Official facility sites will be announced upon ground-break approval.
