BC Completes $17M, 72,000-SF Yawkey Athletic Center

"The Yawkey Center is designed to serve Boston College athletics well for many years to come," Philip L. Laird, associate principal at ARC/Architectural Resources, which designed the building, tells GlobeSt.com. Laird says the completion of the facility coincides with BC's move from the Big East Conference to the Atlantic Coast Conference, which the school will begin competing in this fall.

"It's a very significant building for the football program," Laird says. "The school needed better facilities for their coaches and athletes and also to improve their recruiting."

While there were some complications to building such a large complex, primarily due to space restraints, Laird says locally based Shawmut Design and Construction, the project's general contractor, completed the work without encountering major problems. Funding for the construction was provided by a grant from the Yawkey Foundation, established by former Boston Red Sox owners Thomas and Jean Yawkey, and private donations.

Open to the public later this year, the building will house a sports-medicine facility along with training, equipment and locker rooms on the first floor, a 6,000-sf fitness center and weight room along with classrooms on the second floor. The third floor has offices and meeting rooms for coaches and athletic staffers along with a central lounge overlooking the campus that will be used to welcome recruits and their families. The top level of the building will be used by the Office of Learning Resources and will include a computer lab, study area and six small-group tutorial suites. A 200-person function room and support space occupies the remainder of the fourth floor.