Atlanta United FC’s new practice facility will cater to the team’s sponsors as much as its players, according to the project architect.
MLS’s newest franchise starts play in 2017 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the downtown venue it will share with the Atlanta Falcons. But 20 miles northeast of the stadium, in suburban Marietta, the team is developing a $50 million complex on 33 acres in a wooded area. The city demolished an apartment complex to clear land for the project, said Mark Carter, a 36-year architect with local firm TVSDesign. Carter is principal-in-charge for the practice facility.
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Tottenham Hotspur’s practice facility is a model for Atlanta United FC.
Photo by: COURTESY OF ATLANTA UNITED FC
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The team’s vision is to develop a multiuse facility where sponsors can engage with the team and have greater access to the organization. The company holding naming rights for the complex, for example, could potentially host events in the lobby and a small auditorium that Carter described as the “tactics room,” a place where Atlanta United FC would typically meet to discuss game strategy.
In addition, the dining room and player lounge could be packaged as a place where corporate partners could eat with the team. The locker rooms and indoor training spaces could be part of fantasy camp opportunities for sponsors participating in those activities. Outdoors, a fan pavilion tied to the team’s youth academy program could be made available for sponsor use, as well.
It’s all part of forming a level of exclusivity connected to the team’s internal operations. To this point, all of those scenarios are in the formative stage as the architect works to complete the design, Carter said. The team is in talks with companies for naming rights and founding partnerships but no deals are done, said Atlanta United FC President Darren Eales.
The complex covers six outdoor fields split equally between natural grass and artificial turf, plus a 30,000-square-foot indoor facility for executive staff and soccer operations, and training and conditioning spaces for Atlanta United FC and a youth soccer academy to develop homegrown talent.
The building has an open floor plan and one main entrance, with no private entries elsewhere for players and staff. The design of a progressive workspace fits with the team’s goal for developing a communal culture with no class separation. Those enrolled in the academy, as young as age 12, will share the training spaces with the MLS players. “They can see their heroes and aspire to be professionals,” Eales said.
The same theme and building flow is part of Tottenham Hotspur’s practice facility, a project Eales worked on during his tenure as the English Premier League club’s director of football administration. Atlanta United FC hired him in September 2014.
Construction starts this fall, and the opening is planned for the first quarter of 2017.
> PANTHERS DEN: The suite renovations at Bank of America Stadium have made the game-day experience even more enjoyable for premium patrons during the Carolina Panthers’ 15-1 season.
The NFL team paid for the $34 million revamp of 153 suites and the construction of two club products, both of which sold out. The suites, which cost $89,000 to $165,000 a year depending on size and location, have new furniture, carpeting and cooking equipment, at least five televisions, and more leg room between rows of seats.
The biggest difference, though, is the retractable glass walls, which when fully opened provide a greater connection to the game. Under the old layout, which was common at NFL stadiums that opened in the 1990s, only a portion of the glass walls near the ceiling could be opened.
“You feel part of the action now without the windows closed,” said Tom Crocker, general manager for Delaware North Sportservice, the Panthers’ food and retail provider and operator of the suites.
Sportservice invested $1 million on its own to purchase new platters, plates, bowls and pans for the suites. The drop-in ice wells and a new thermal heating procedure to keep food warm are an upgrade over induction heat and give the suite a more contemporary look, Crocker said.
Wagner Murray Architects, a Charlotte firm, designed the suite refurb. The same company is working on the renovations to Raymond James Stadium.
Don Muret can be reached at dmuret@sportsbusinessjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @breakground.
