Comprising 225,000 square feet, the state-of-the-art arena seats 9,500 fans and features a full basketball court and locker room suites for players, athletic coaches and officials. It also includes more luxurious amenities such as a private student concourse, courtside and baseline student seating, three premium club areas — the Courtside Club, the All-American Club and the Pavilion Club — more than 1,700 premium seats and an intimate seating bowl. Spectators can even watch the action on the largest center-hung video display board in all of college sports, or enjoy the cutting-edge, fiber-enabled Wi-Fi lounge.

The facility was designed by AECOM Technology of Kansas City, Mo.; BL Harbert International located in Birmingham, Ala., served as the project’s general contractor.

The Pavilion at Ole Miss is intended to serve as the centerpiece of the Ole Miss Athletics Foundation’s Forward Together capital campaign, according to a statement by AECOM. Located adjacent to Vaught-Hemingway Stadium (which is also undergoing an AECOM-designed expansion and renovation), The Pavilion anchors an updated athletics complex near The Grove, the university’s central open space and renowned tailgating location.

Additionally, the proximity of the facilities is intended to build synergy between football and arena operations and boost the game day experience for fans. The Athletics Foundation worked with AECOM to maximize opportunities for fan engagement, premium seating experiences, sustainable revenue sources, student involvement and campus engagement, according to a statement by the company.

“AECOM provided an integrated perspective with market and economic analysis, long-term cost planning, extensive sports experience and exceptional design,” said Keith Carter, senior associate athletics director and executive director of the Ole Miss Athletics Foundation in a statement. “We’re very proud of their contributions to our facility projects and look forward to The Pavilion becoming a cornerstone of campus life.”

Structurally, the facility consists of a three-story steel frame supporting steel trusses. A curved, colonnaded entrance featuring Doric columns greets visitors at the arena’s entryway, a nod to Ole Miss’ southern traditional architecture style. A barrel roof with a grand clerestory window wall helps introduce natural light into the seating bowl, which is visible from both the main concourse and the mezzanine level. Retractable lower seating allows for large group lectures and convocations on the event floor, and the north entry can double as a food court on non-game days, according to a statement by AECOM.

ACI Building Systems LLC of Batesville, Miss., supplied the arena’s durable, weather-resistant UltraLok Roof system, which was coated with Fluropon by Valspar in a terra cotta hue.

“We are excited to work on such a high profile project in conjunction with ACI,” said Tommy Rogers of Chattanooga, Tenn.-based Rogers Steel Company, which provided metal panels for the project, in a statement issued by Valspar. “The 22-gauge galvalume substrate on this job, paired with the Valspar Fluropon coating, is not only aesthetically pleasing, but offers a premium roofing system fitting of this project.”

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The 200,000-square-foot, $135 million science facility will add to the university’s Science District. The project follows the completion of the Thad Cochran Research Center Wing, which added more than 96,000 square feet of research space for the School of Pharmacy, and a 36,000-square-foot expansion of Coulter Hall.

“Our vision is that this will be one of the country’s leading, student-centered learning environments for STEM education,” said Maurice Eftink, the university’s associate provost, in a statement. “It will offer state-of-the-art labs and classrooms, including what are called ‘technology-enhanced active learning’ labs. This will be a place where our students will be able to enter in the morning to take classes, meet up with other students for study sessions and lunch, participate in afternoon lab classes, work on research projects and engage with the building to learn about STEM fields in casual, informal ways.”

The additional space and technical enhancements will benefit the university’s growing student body. In fact, The Chronicle of Higher Education listed Ole Miss as the nation’s 13th fastest growing university, with more than 23,000 students enrolled across all campuses in 2014.

“The new STEM building will be a real game changer for the university,” Eftink added in a statement. “We all hear about the need to increase graduates in STEM fields, to support growth in the regional economy and to support the pipeline for training health professionals, engineers, and science and math teachers. We have reached a stage where we are almost maxed out in our ability to provide STEM courses, especially lab courses, for students wishing to major in these areas. This building will meet a very critical need to assure that students can pursue their goals of majoring in STEM fields.”

In September, the Gertrude C. Ford Foundation expanded a $20 million donation in support of the university’s new science building to $25 million, bringing the Ford Foundation’s donations to the university to more than $53.5 million. It already contributed $25 million to the 88,000-square-foot Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts, which opened in 2002. If all goes according to plan, the new STEM facility will open in fall 2018.

This is just one of many construction projects enhancing the Ole Miss campus. This month, the university debuted the $96.5 million Pavilion at Ole Miss, a multipurpose arena, which will mainly serve the school’s basketball team. The new arena features seating for 9,500 fans, a student concourse, courtside seating, more than 1,700 premium seats and other amenities such as concessions. Construction took about 18 months, and the school’s first game in the facility was played on Jan. 6.
 

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