UTSA planning developments on RACE facility
San Antonio Express News
When Lisa Campos stepped in as UTSA athletic director last January, the questions already were swirling.
What can be done to improve the Roadrunners’ sports facilities? Should the department be based at Park West or on the main campus? How quickly can the program expect to see change?
Campos heard the desires of student-athletes, coaches and donors who had seen years of discussion yield little action.
She wants shovels in the dirt, and she said this week that UTSA is planning to break ground in November on a $44 million facilities project that will include a covered football practice field.
The Roadrunner Athletics Center of Excellence, or RACE, will be in the southwest part of campus and is tabbed for completion in September 2020, according to a presentation UTSA prepared but was not called on to deliver publicly at the city of San Antonio’s June 13 council meeting.
The project will be paid for largely through UTSA athletics fundraising and philanthropy, bolstered by $10 million from the city of San Antonio that was approved by residents in May 2017 as part of the city’s general obligation bond program.
The facility also will include a sports medicine center, a weight room, offices for the athletics administration, classrooms and research labs.
“We want to be efficient, and we want to be quick about this, but also very strategic,” Campos said. “People have been talking about these facilities for years, but ground has not been broken. That’s why there is a sense of urgency that we can’t continue to talk about these. Now, today is the day. We have to move forward on this very quickly.”
Campos declined to disclose details about the fundraising effort but said “we’re all in alignment and very optimistic that we’re going to hit these milestones.”
The covered football practice field is expected to cost $6.6 million and the Roadrunner Center of Excellence will run $2.1 million, according to a draft of a project budget attached to the funding agreement between the city of San Antonio and the Roadrunner Athletic Foundation that was approved at the June 13 council meeting.
