Rhonda Faehn is thrilled to see the bulldozers and construction workers tearing apart the north end of the Stephen C. O’Connell Center.
Faehn coaches the UF gymnastics team, which placed second at the NCAA championship and won the Southeastern Conference this season. She said she’s excited to see the beginnings of a $4.3 million project that will expand and renovate her team’s practice facility there.
In her 10 years at UF, Faehn said she never asked for anything. But last summer, she found out a $15 million bond from the University Athletic Association would include a renovation and expansion of the gymnastics team’s practice facility.
“It’s not even a renovation,” Faehn said. “It’s a complete re-do and expansion and upgrade and everything for our facility.”
Currently in the demolition phase, the construction will officially begin in 30 to 60 days, said Chip Howard, senior associate athletic director, who is managing the project for the University Athletic Association.
The project should be finished by Jan. 1, he said.
However, Bahar Armaghani, the project manager with UF Facilities, Planning and Construction, said she is aiming to be done between Dec. 15 and 17, and the exterior will be completed by the fall.
Armaghani said the construction composes $2.9 million of the total project price tag. The rest of the money will go toward equipment. The 24,000-square-foot renovation includes a 14,000-square-foot expansion, which is an addition about the size of the UF Racquet Club and Student Recreation and Fitness Center.
Armaghani said the project features new offices by the training room rather than underneath the O’Connell Center, where gymnastics coaches and staff are currently housed.
“That’s what every other school has,” she said, “and we didn’t have it that way.”
She and Howard said the practice facility was too small and had heating issues.
Faehn said her favorite part of the renovations will be that the facility is recessed into the ground. This will help prevent gymnasts from tumbling into the mirrored walls, she said.
Many of the new features are safety-oriented. For example, more soft landing surfaces after practice beams will prevent athletes having to wait in line to dismount.
Some of the other new features include a nutrition bar, an observation deck for visiting recruits, a massage room, new gymnastics equipment and high-definition TVs and cameras that provide instant feedback to athletes at practice.
We were able to feel like we are getting everything we could possibly want and even more,” Faehn said.
