Spacious and Wired
UNM's New Basketball Practice Facility

By Neal Singer

There's plenty going on inside the University of New Mexico's new
basketball practice facility.

 

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The building - a $4.2 million renovation of a gymnastics facility built in 1985, which will be known as the Rudy Davalos Basketball Center - sits a few feet south of the dramatic UNM Pit (more formally known as University Arena), where the school's basketball games are played.

Little has been spent to give the brown-stucco, stem-wall-and-block practice building the exterior pizzazz of its gaudier northern neighbor.

But inside, 35-ft.-high skylights tower over a huge maple playing floor that supports six baskets and a small spectator >> area, unlike the Pit next door, which seats 18,000

The openness generates a feeling of athletes at play rather than under pressure.

"Albuquerque-based general contractor Jaynes Corp. provided a level-enough subfloor for us to scissor-lock a maple wood playing floor that has no dead spots," said Robert Cohen of Robert Cohen LLC, an Albuquerque-based distributor and installer of athletic floorings. A dead spot is a place on a wood floor where the ball does not bounce truly. "Even NBA floors have dead spots," he added.

Work on the building began June 1 and is now complete.

Entering from the west, a curving hallway is enlivened by 27 glass bricks inserted in the left-hand wall to mirror display cases that will be inserted in niches formed in the opposite wall.

Behind the glass bricks is a hospitality room with a caterer's kitchen; behind the other wall is the central computer command of the totally wired building.

Vulcanized rubber in Lobo colors of cherry and silver form the flooring of the main entrance foyer.

"Rubber is the latest wave in flooring," because it provides cushioning, is emission-free, is slip-resistant even when wet and never need waxing, Cohen said.

The foyer has four widely spaced fiber-optic ports emerging from the floor that will operate kiosks providing pictorial and informational history about the university and its basketball program.

An optically wired study room features 13 carrels for computers and books, with keyboard support pads that can be elevated 4 ft. high for the comfort of larger athletes.

A trapezoidal-shaped briefing room, roughly 17 by 33 ft., provides space for team members to view replays of games or to help the coach respond to questions from reporters at news conferences by electronically revisiting appropriate game moments.

Even the basketball floor is overhung with fiber-optic lines that can be lowered to reporters' tables during major tournaments next door at the Pit.

"The whole place is wired for data," said Jaynes project manager Mark Strong.

Project architect John Pate of Albuquerque-based Molzen Corbin and Associates added, "Nowadays, everything works over computer wires. You have to be able to plug in anything anywhere."

Workers had to take out large load-bearing walls to add 17,000 sq. ft. to the existing 9,000-sq.-ft. structure. "We poured early enough to miss the concrete shortage," Strong said.

The project is only one of a number of renovations taking place at UNM Albuquerque.

Its ancient Communication and Journalism Building is using proceeds from a $4 million bond to upgrade the popular department that had to teach 60 percent of its courses at offsite locations, said UNM spokesperson Sabra Basler.

A $30.6 million project to renovate the university's Castetter Hall is under way as well.

Built in 1952 and upgraded in 1967, the project will add 30,000 sq. ft. of genomic research facilities to the school's biology department, an introductory teaching facility in the basement and renovation of existing spaces.

Key Players

UNM New Basketball Practice Facilityl

Owner: University of New Mexico
General Contractor: Jaynes Corporation
Architect: Molzen Corbin and Associates
Electrical Contractor: Service Electric Company
Mechanical Contractor: Hanna Plumbing & Heating
Concrete Contractor: Jaynes Structures
Steel Contractor: Pace Iron Works

 
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