Mitch Barnhart overhauled UK facilities, but these projects are left for J Batt
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Barnhart oversaw more than $400 million in on-campus athletics projects.
- UK plans $25 million of Kroger Field projects including new club spaces and added seating.
- J Batt must secure funding to repay about half of the $110 million internal loan.
The setting for Mitch Barnhart’s final Board of Trustees meeting as Kentucky’s athletics director was fitting.
Moved from the student center ballroom where the board normally meets to the Longship Club inside Kroger field, Tuesday’s athletics committee meeting took place with a clear view of one of Barnhart’s most important legacies at UK. The Longship Club, a premium seating area, was built as part of the $126 million renovation in 2015 to the facility then known as Commonwealth Stadium.
Just outside a bank of glass windows on one side of the club, ongoing work on the latest football stadium renovation was visible with new chairback seating being installed on the first few rows of the upper level on the stadium’s north side.
In Barnhart’s 24 years as athletics director, Kentucky completed more than $400 million of renovations and new construction for on-campus athletic facilities. Barnhart also helped negotiate a new lease with the city for the men’s basketball team’s use of Rupp Arena, helping finance a $310 million renovation that dramatically altered the outside of that building and expanded premium seating areas inside it.
“Mitch leaves UK and UK Athletics better than how he found it, perhaps the most important thing that any of us can achieve,” UK president Eli Capilouto told the athletics committee on the eve of Barnhart’s official retirement.
That sentiment is nowhere more clear than in the school’s athletics facilities.
The football program received multiple new playing fields during Barnhart’s tenure, a $6 million video and audio upgrade in 2011, the $126 million stadium overhaul in 2015, a new $45 million practice facility in 2016, a $5 million refit for the indoor practice field in 2023 and a new $3 million weight room earlier this year.
In addition to multiple upgrades at Rupp Arena over the past quarter of a century, UK built a new $30 million practice facility in 2007 for the men’s and women’s basketball teams and a $6.1 million dorm for men’s players in 2012. UK later renovated the Joe Craft Center locker room at a cost of $4 million in 2018.
Last year, UK completed an $82 million renovation of Memorial Coliseum that made the 76-year-old arena one of the nicest facilities for women’s sports in the country. The women’s basketball, volleyball, gymnastics and STUNT teams all call that facility home.
UK built a $49 million baseball stadium, a $9.5 million softball stadium and a $7.7 million soccer stadium just off Alumni drive during Barnhart’s tenure. At the request of donors Wendell And Vickie Bell, UK in 2020 dubbed that stretch of facilities the Barnhart Family Athletics Complex.
In 2012, UK opened a new $13 million outdoor track and field stadium. In 2023, the school opened a $20 million indoor track facility next door.
Add a $3.7 million practice facility for the golf teams opened at the University Club in 2013, a variety of upgrades to other locker rooms and weight rooms across campus, the $25 million worth of renovations to Kroger Field that began this winter and the money UK spent toward the Rupp Arena renovations and the total approaches half a billion dollars in Barnhart’s tenure.
But the work is never done. With the school focused on finding new ways to generate revenue to account for the more than $20 million it now distributes to athletes each year, planning is ongoing for a variety of facility improvements designed to make the department more money.
In a budget update provided to the athletics committee Tuesday, UK maintained its projection that the department would again break even financially in fiscal year 2027, but J Batt, Barnhart’s replacement, will need to secure funding for the next wave of projects. The school has already allocated around half of the $110 million internal loan it received from the university last year to facility updates. That money will need to be paid back, with interest to the school.
“To incoming AD J Batt … treasure it. It is beyond special,” Barnhart said in his final address to the athletics committee. “I wish you all the best, and I want you to succeed at the highest level possible. Take it, finish the race. You will do well.”
Here are the facility projects Batt will be first tasked with seeing to completion:
Kroger Field upgrades
In January, the Champions Blue LLC Board of Governors reviewed five projects planned for Kroger Field that will cost an estimated $25 million combined. The first phase of that project — adding chairs to the first few rows of the upper level — was completed in conjunction with maintenance on that side the stadium this offseason. UK removed all the seats from the north side of the stadium for maintenance, then added the new chairs as seats were reinstalled. As of Tuesday, the upper level chairs had been installed with work ongoing on reinstalling the remaining bleachers.
Next winter, the same project will be completed on the south side of the stadium. UK also plans to add new loge boxes under the corner end zone luxury suites, add additional seats to existing club areas and open standing-room patio clubs under both scoreboards. A new west end zone club at field level will be opened for fans across the stadium to purchase access to. The addition of stadium-wide Wi-Fi was included in the original proposal for the west end zone club, but it is unclear when that portion of the project will be completed after the club was downsized in subsequent plans.
Maintenance on the corner end zone suites, originally opened in 1999, and elevators is 67% completed, according to the budget presentation at Tuesday’s meeting. UK plans for the west end zone club to be opened in 2027.
Entertainment district
Barnhart leaves in the middle of planning for one of the most dramatic changes to Kentucky’s on-campus athletics facilities in decades. Like many schools around the country, UK is planning to construct an entertainment district that could include retail, dining and hotels.
The bulk of that work will occur near Kroger Field, along both sides of Cooper Drive, but UK has also purchased a building next to Memorial Coliseum as it explores proposals for a possible secondary district on the north side of campus. Batt should have familiarity with the process since Michigan State was also planning its own entertainment district while he was athletics director there.
Plans for the Kroger Field entertainment district are expected to be finalized this summer, but we already know construction will occur at the current site of Bluegrass Community and Technical College. UK has not released an estimated price for the project or any information about how it will be funded.
Basketball practice facility
One piece of the entertainment district could be a multi-use facility that would include a basketball practice facility and UK HealthCare Sports Medicine facility. The Board of Trustees gave approval for the predesign phase of that project in September, but Kevin Locke, UK’s associate vice president of planning, design and construction, told the Champions Blue board of governors in April a final decision had not been made on whether the facility would be built near Kroger Field or Memorial Coliseum.
There is no approximate price tag yet for the facility or word on how it will be funded. Those questions will be answered during the predesign phase when UK determines what exactly will be housed in the building. The project could resemble facilities in Atlanta and Cleveland that include NBA practice facilities in partnership with sports medicine clinics.
The most likely outcome is the facility houses just the men’s basketball program, but the women’s basketball program could be included too. If just the men’s team works out of the new facility, additional space for women’s basketball, volleyball, gymnastics and STUNT would be opened in the Joe Craft Center adjacent to Memorial Coliseum.
Tennis facility
The Memorial Coliseum renovation is a fitting final win for Barnhart in his record of facility improvements, but the one project he was unable to complete despite years of planning was construction of a new tennis arena. The initial rendering of the Kroger Field entertainment district plan the department chose includes construction at the current site of the Hillary J Boone Tennis Center and construction of a new tennis arena in the Barnhart Family Athletics Complex off Alumni Drive.
However, until final plans are released and funding is secured, it would be dangerous to assume a project that has been near the top of Barnhart’s priority list for so long without any movement will be undertaken. The landscape for investment in nonrevenue sports is fraught at the moment as schools look to rein in expenses while making more money.
What happens with the tennis facility will be an early test case for how Batt views those projects.