As recently as the early-1990s, NBA teams would practice at local college gyms. Just imagine, high-profile, multimillion dollar athletes working on their post-up games and pick-and-roll defense on the creaky floors and shaky backboards at Northwest Backwater U.
Eventually teams got their own practice facilities, and now teams are building state-of-the-art complexes filled with practice courts, locker rooms, fitness centers, hydrotherapy pools, dining halls, and medical and training rooms.
Everything is top-of-the-line, too. Teams want to make sure their players are happy, rested, and physically fit. Teams also use the facilities as a way to lure free agents, to make their team a place where the league’s best players want to play.
The Atlanta Hawks are shaping up to become one of those teams. The Hawks and Emory Healthcare and partnering to build a 90,000-sf training and sports medicine center in Brookhaven, Ga.
The building, designed by HOK, will be the NBA’s first practice facility to be located within a sports medicine center. The arrangement allows for immediate treatment and on-site access to advanced medical technology, like the 3 Tesla MRI, a body scanner that can detect injuries from bruises to torn ligaments. Emory will use 30,000 sf of the building for sports training and preventive and rehabilitative treatment.
The facility will also have equipment for 3D motion capture, cryotherapy, sensory deprivation, and in-ground hydrotherapy. Hawks players will receive training services from sports science company P3.
“By blending research, sports medicine, healthcare and training into one building, the Atlanta Hawks and Emory Healthcare will change the way the industry approaches athletic training and injury prevention,” George Heinlein, a Regional Rirector of HOK’s Sports + Recreation + Entertainment practice, said in a statement. “We have brought together HOK’s multidisciplinary leaders in healthcare, science and technology, and sports facility design to elevate the training experience and create a new model for professional and collegiate athletics.”
Construction will begin this summer, and the building will open in the fall of 2017, before the NBA season begins. The privately-funded center will cost roughly $50 million.
The Hawks currently practice in an auxiliary gym at their home at Philips Arena.
Related Stories
| Jan 20, 2011
Construction begins on second St. Louis community center
O’Fallon Park Recreation Complex in St. Louis, designed by local architecture/engineering firm KAI Design & Build, will feature an indoor aquatic park with interactive water play features, a lazy river, water slides, laps lanes, and an outdoor spray and multiuse pool.
| Nov 16, 2010
Brazil Olympics spurring green construction
Brazil's green building industry will expand in the coming years, spurred by construction of low-impact venues being built for the 2016 Olympics. The International Olympic Committee requires arenas built for the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro meet international standards for low-carbon emissions and energy efficiency. This has boosted local interest in developing real estate with lower environmental impact than existing buildings. The timing couldn’t be better: the Brazilian government is just beginning its long-term infrastructure expansion program.
| Nov 3, 2010
Park’s green education center a lesson in sustainability
The new Cantigny Outdoor Education Center, located within the 500-acre Cantigny Park in Wheaton, Ill., earned LEED Silver. Designed by DLA Architects, the 3,100-sf multipurpose center will serve patrons of the park’s golf courses, museums, and display garden, one of the largest such gardens in the Midwest.
| Nov 3, 2010
Sailing center sets course for energy efficiency, sustainability
The Milwaukee (Wis.) Community Sailing Center’s new facility on Lake Michigan counts a geothermal heating and cooling system among its sustainable features. The facility was designed for the nonprofit instructional sailing organization with energy efficiency and low operating costs in mind.
| Nov 3, 2010
Recreation center targets student health, earns LEED Platinum
Not only is the student recreation center at the University of Arizona, Tucson, the hub of student life but its new 54,000-sf addition is also super-green, having recently attained LEED Platinum certification.
| Oct 13, 2010
New health center to focus on education and awareness
Construction is getting pumped up at the new Anschutz Health and Wellness Center at the University of Colorado, Denver. The four-story, 94,000-sf building will focus on healthy lifestyles and disease prevention.
| Oct 13, 2010
Community center under way in NYC seeks LEED Platinum
A curving, 550-foot-long glass arcade dubbed the “Wall of Light” is the standout architectural and sustainable feature of the Battery Park City Community Center, a 60,000-sf complex located in a two-tower residential Lower Manhattan complex. Hanrahan Meyers Architects designed the glass arcade to act as a passive energy system, bringing natural light into all interior spaces.
| Oct 13, 2010
Community college plans new campus building
Construction is moving along on Hudson County Community College’s North Hudson Campus Center in Union City, N.J. The seven-story, 92,000-sf building will be the first higher education facility in the city.
| Oct 12, 2010
Owen Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Officials at Michigan State University’s East Lansing Campus were concerned that Owen Hall, a mid-20th-century residence facility, was no longer attracting much interest from its target audience, graduate and international students.
| Oct 12, 2010
Building 13 Naval Station, Great Lakes, Ill.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Gold Award. Designed by Chicago architect Jarvis Hunt and constructed in 1903, Building 13 is one of 39 structures within the Great Lakes Historic District at Naval Station Great Lakes, Ill.
