Jets To Be In New Training Facility By Fall, Earlier Than Expected

Jets To Move To New Training Facility This Fall

The Jets have "moved up their departure date" and will be leaving their training facility at Hofstra Univ. and moving into the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center in Florham Park, New Jersey, about 30 miles west of Manhattan "in late August or early September," according to Rich Cimini of the N.Y. DAILY NEWS. The original plan was for the Jets to move during the next offseason, but "construction is ahead of schedule" (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 4/4). The Jets hired architect David Childs, "a longtime Jets fan, to translate their vision into a design." The team said that it is "spending more than $75[M] to build" the facility, and has sold naming rights to Atlantic Health in a 12-year deal for an "unspecified amount." In N.Y., Greg Bishop notes the move "represents an upgrade to a swanky facility from a serviceable one." Jets Owner Woody Johnson said of the new facility, "Function follows form. If you have great architecture, and the architecture is designed specifically for football, you're going to have a better product on the field." Childs: "No other facility of its kind has this kind of quality to it.''

FINELY TUNED DETAILS: Jets VP/Design & Construction Bill Senn said that the "easiest way to picture" the new facility is to "imagine an extended H. The offices that take the shape of the letter, with two fields -- one artificial outdoor, one artificial indoor -- on either side of the center bar." Childs, of the H design: "Talk about a cathedral. A cathedral of sweat. It's the heart of the project." The training center will be "about 130,000 square feet with offices covering "more than twice the space as they do at Hofstra." The field house has a 100-foot ceiling "so punters will not bounce footballs off them the way they do" at Hofstra. Bishop notes "flooring with hash marks will run throughout the building," and practice film "will be sent through wires from the fields to the video center." Johnson said murals of fans "almost like modern art" will line the fields and corridors. The training area is "double the current size, has a 12,000-square-foot weight room and a therapy pool in which injured players can run in water" (N.Y. TIMES, 4/4).