Today's anticipated big announcement from the USC Trojans was that a new athletic facility will be built on campus next to Heritage Hall. The two-story, 110,000 square foot building will be on the site of the current intramural field. Per the press release, "will house meeting rooms, coaches offices and a locker room for the football program, as well as an academic center, weight room, athletic training room and state-of-the-art digital media production facility for all of USC's 21 sports."
↵Ground breaking for the new athletic building will begin in January 2011, and is expected to take 18 months to complete. Also per the press release:
↵↵↵The upper level of the new building, also 25,000-square feet, will house the football coaches' offices, football team and position meeting rooms and a video production facility. There will also be an outdoor patio area. "Once this facility is completed, our physical infrastructure will be among the finest of any athletic department in the nation, and worthy of our student-athletes," Haden said.
↵
This seems a far cry from, say, a decade ago, when it seemingly took forever to build a new basketball arena, for instance. There were rumors of a new basketball arena for nearly 40 years, dating back to the Paul Westphal era, but it didn't get done until the Galen Center, which opened in 2006.
↵For drawings of the new athletic building, click here.
↵For more USC news and analysis, be sure to read the SB Nation blog Conquest Chronicles.