The Woody Hayes Athletic Center is headed for its most significant overhaul in decades.
At a Thursday press conference, Ross Bjork said the Buckeyes hope to break ground on a $125 million renovation project for the WHAC, which has served as the Ohio State football practice facility since October 1987.
The project is aimed at modernizing coaches’ offices, team meeting spaces, conference rooms, the locker room, training room and more — elevating the WHAC to what Ohio State can view as a championship-standard facility.
“What we’re really looking at is the existing building that is on the north side of the building. The offices, the team meeting rooms, the coaches’ conference rooms, Coach Day’s office, the locker room, the training room,” Bjork said. “What we want to do is we want to expand the locker room, expand the training room, develop a bigger team meeting room at some place within that structure.”
“Frankly, for me, it’s just time to go. We’ve got to get this thing off the ground. We’ve been talking about it long enough, and now it’s time.”– Ross Bjork on OHIO STATE Renovating the Woody Hayes Athletic Center
Bjork said the primary driver behind the project is space.
“Right now, not everyone can fit in the team meeting room when we have a team meeting,” Bjork explained. “The individual position rooms are in the same place as the coaches’ offices. So if (offensive line coach) Tyler Bowen needs to have a private meeting and somebody wants an offensive lineman to watch film, somebody has to leave.”
Bjork said the current plan is to build an updated office complex and weight room that would be part of “new construction” within the current framework, while the rest of the building would undergo “a total renovation.”
Ohio State has no plans to relocate the WHAC, as Bjork noted the program values its location and proximity to Ohio Stadium.
“The location’s great. We don’t want to lose that opportunity of that location,” he said. “But new construction will be part of it, and then a total renovation timeline. We’ve raised some money on it, but that’s why we need some public visibility. We need to get it out to the public. We need to let people know.
“Once we have that, we can really map out a time. It’s not a short turnaround time. You have to design it, you have to go out to bid, you’ve got all the approvals, so we’re probably still 18 months or so from breaking ground. But we’ve got to get the process activated to get the approval started, then we can really put the design in place to have the right building.”
Bjork estimated the project will cost $125 million. He said Ohio State has “gifts committed” and “proposals in front of people” that would get the athletic department close to that figure, but there is still work to do.
There are also logistical challenges ahead.
“You have to move out of the building for most of those areas, so how do we stage that? Where do people go in the meantime? What if we’re renovating the locker room and we’re moving out? What does a temporary locker room look like?” Bjork said. “There’ll be short-term pain along the way.”
Still, Bjork said the long-term payoff outweighs the disruption.
“Frankly, for me, it’s just time to go. We’ve got to get this thing off the ground,” Bjork said. “We’ve been talking about it long enough, and now it’s time.”
