2025 Texas & Southeast Best Projects
Award of Merit, Renovation/Restoration: Vanderbilt University Huber Center Basketball Practice Facility
Vanderbilt University Huber Center Basketball Practice Facility
Nashville
Award of Merit
Submitted by Barton Malow
Owner Vanderbilt University
Lead Design Firm Populous
CM/GC Barton Malow
Associate GC/CM Don Hardin Group
Associate Design Firm Culture Architects
As the only private university in the Southeast Conference, Vanderbilt faced significant pressure to elevate its athletic facilities to stay competitive in the recruiting landscape. So the university partnered with Barton Malow and Populous to construct the largest dedicated practice facility in the U.S.—collegiate or professional—for its men’s and women’s basketball teams.
Designed with dedicated floors for each team, student athletes have private access to practice courts, locker rooms, lounges, film rooms and coaching offices. The teams share fitness and training; sports medicine; nutritional treatment; hydrotherapy; and social and dining spaces.
Construction took place on about 7 acres in the heart of campus, adjacent to three different university athletic facilities, two hotels and a university parking garage. The facility sits in the north end zone of the football stadium. To accommodate the facility’s small site footprint, the north end zone was renovated as well.
A large component of the renovation was utility infrastructure upgrades, including an aging 87-in. combination storm/sanitary sewer pipe under the site. When the addition was complete, there would be no opportunity to address underground issues without a major impact on the stadium’s renovated areas, so the team had to anticipate potential issues. The construction team addressed the final structural design during constructibility reviews, working with the design team and the university to provide a long-term solution that would eliminate the need for future rework.
