The John McKay Center, a $70 million, 110,000-square foot building that will be an expanded home base for USC’s coaches and athletes, will be dedicated this week.
The two-story (plus basement) building will include meeting rooms, coaches’ offices, an indoor football field, locker room, weight room and other facilities for all of USC’s 21 sports.
The John McKay Center’s approximately 60,000-square foot basement includes a 32,000-square-foot weight room, more than triple the size of the 9,600-square-foot weight room in Heritage Hall; an 18,000-square-foot athletic training room, more than six times the size of Heritage Hall’s 2,700-square- foot training room; men’s and women’s locker rooms, and a players’ lounge.
The Stevens Academic Center, which features tutoring, counseling, study and computer rooms for USC athletes, a reception area and outdoor courtyard, will be on the 25,000-square-foot ground floor.
Football coaches’ offices, football team meeting rooms, an outdoor patio and video production area will be on the 25,000-square-foot second floor.
USC staff started moving into the John McKay Center at the end of July.
The John McKay Center, named for USC’s winningest football coach, is directly west of Heritage Hall, the athletic department’s headquarters. It was built on the site of an intramural field that was relocated just south of its previous spot, between the John McKay Center and the Locker Track Stadium.
USC athletic director Pat Haden has called the John McKay Center “the finest of its kind anywhere.”
Heritage Hall will remain in use and “always be the central point of our athletic department,” Haden said in 2010, when plans for the John McKay Center were announced.
“The reality is that we have outgrown Heritage Hall and we are badly undersized and overcrowded in there,” Haden said.