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The latest on Texas Tech football's Jones AT&T Stadium, Womble Football Center projects
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- The latest on Texas Tech football's Jones AT&T Stadium, Womble Football Center projects
Texas Tech football coaches moved into their offices in the new Jones AT&T Stadium south end zone building in July, and the Red Raiders have been having team meetings in the field-level club since they started practice last week.
The project construction team met the targeted substantial completion dates on those two levels, Texas Tech deputy athletics director Jonathan Botros said. Work elsewhere continues before the Aug. 31 season opener against Abilene Christian.
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"We think Aug. 20 everything will be complete," Botros said Tuesday, "but there's still some work to be done on the concourse and the premium level. The coaches' level and field club, yes, those dates were met."
The two-year, $242 million project announced in July 2022 is anchored by three new structures: the four-level south end zone building, the two-story Dustin R. Womble Football Center and a visitors locker room at the northeast corner of the stadium.
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"The coaches have already moved in," Botros said. "They're operating fully functional on that second floor. The field club is fully functional right now.
"There's still some odds and ends that are taking place, but the furniture is ready to be unpackaged. A lot of the furniture has already been unpackaged. But it is already no PPE (personal protective equipment) required down there. It's being used as we speak for full team meetings of the football team on a daily basis."
Texas Tech football visitors' locker room nears completion, east lot about to be 60 percent open
Meanwhile, work continues in the stadium's east parking lot, where the visitors' locker room was built next to the Marsha Sharp Freeway and where a variety of personnel have operated out of trailers since last year.
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Botros said the interior of the locker room is about 90 percent finished.
"If you look at the (locker-room) site, it's still kind of got some work to do," he said, "but that site work will start being wrapped up this weekend, into next week. And so I'd say by the end of the next week, it should look close to a finished product. We don't have any concerns at this point that it'll be fully functional and ready for game day."
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Opposing teams last season dressed in portable trailers in the east lot. Tech players used them during winter, spring and summer workouts.
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"The majority of the construction-team trailers and project-management team trailers will start coming out next week in anticipation for game day," Botros said. "The main trailers for (contractors) Manhattan and Lee Lewis will stay in place for the first few home games, but the rest of the trailers will come out.
"The players' locker-room trailer and the equipment trailer will stay in place for game one, but we will add back about 60 percent more of that parking lot for folks that have a spot on there for game day."
Targeted substantial completion date for Womble Football Center pushed back to Oct. 4
The targeted substantial completion date for the Womble Football Center has been pushed back from Sept. 18 to Oct. 4. The Red Raiders' first open date is Oct. 12. The week leading up to it offers a window of time to shift some operations into that building, which includes a two-story weight room, a two-story players' lounge, a team room and a walkthrough room with a large LED screen and turf.
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There are contractual damage provisions for a project not completed on time, but Botros said that's not expected to be a consideration.
"As with most construction projects, if there's damages to us — namely, that would be we're not able to host all fans on game day — there would be some damages in the contract related to that," Botros said. "But that's not something we anticipate, have any anticipation of, at this point."
The new Jones AT&T Stadium south end zone building is shown on Tuesday, July 30, 2024. A Texas Tech athletics spokesman said listed stadium capacity for this season will be 60,229, down slightly from last year due to renovations.
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This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: The latest on Texas Tech football facilities projects
