The Plan

The athletics complex includes a Football Operations Center. Since 1991, the McCue Center has served as the daily home for Virginia Football. But in the last 30 years, the day-to-day operations of a college football program have changed dramatically, and the McCue Center is no longer suitable to house the needs of a Power 5 conference football program. Since the McCue Center opened, every current ACC football program, and most of our national peers, have renovated or built a new operations center. The first floor of the Football Operations Center will feature a team locker room, player lounge, sports medicine/training room, sports nutrition space, and a strength and conditioning room which opens onto the new natural grass practice fields. The second floor will accommodate a team meeting room along with position meeting rooms — all designed as classroom space for maximum practice and game preparation. Located adjacent to the meeting rooms will be the coaches’ offices as well as the video analysis and recruiting areas. Virginia’s Football Operations Center will provide our student-athletes and coaches every opportunity to field a consistently competitive program. More importantly, this facility will allow our coaches and staff to safely and effectively train and develop our student-athletes.

The McCue Center renovation and construction of the Olympic Sports Center are part of Phase III of the Master Plan. The McCue Center will be renovated to accommodate many of our Olympic sport programs. The Olympic Sports Center will be centrally located in the athletics precinct and will feature a performance training center, strength and conditioning facilities, tutoring and academic support spaces, and a hall of champions. Still in the design phase, these areas will replace the functions that were housed in University Hall, Onesty Hall, and the Cage and will contain programming that will benefit every Virginia student-athlete.

The Center for Citizen Leaders and Sports Ethics will be located in the new Olympic Sports Center and is a critical component of the Athletics Master Plan. The center will provide programming to develop citizen leaders who are prepared to make a meaningful impact on society. Through the Center for Citizen Leaders and Sports Ethics, our student-athletes will have unique access to industry-leading programming in academic achievement, career development, leadership development, personal development, and community engagement as an integral part of their UVA experience. These services will be housed in the McCue Center, the hub of activity for student-athletes.

Following completion of the McCue Center renovation and the Olympic Sports Center, the temporary locker rooms currently in use will be removed and a multi-sport natural grass practice field will be added to provide an additional training location for our Olympic sports.

The addition of a pedestrian promenade as a prominent feature of the Master Plan will provide greater connectivity from Central Grounds to North Grounds. It will encourage daily activity in the athletics precinct and serve as a gathering point on game days. This walkway will also provide opportunities to recognize UVA athletics legends and dedicated donors whose financial support helped to make this project a reality. 

"With all the uncertainty in college athletics, we must ensure we can continue to develop citizen leaders and compete for, and win, national championships,” Carla Williams, athletics director, said. “In order to do this for all sports, we must invest in our football program because it is the right thing to do and because football drives revenue for our entire department. We have a window of opportunity to transform our athletics facilities and solidify the future of UVA Athletics."

For more information, visit VirginiaSportsMP.com or contact the Virginia Athletics Foundation at 434-982-5555 or vafweb@virginia.edu.