<\/p>\n
When asked for the reason behind his push for a new basketball practice facility on campus, UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart <\/a>was quick to clear things up \u2014 or redirect the focus, rather.<\/p>\n The drama of Coach Cal\u2019s very public request back in 2022 leading to a campus civil war, only for Mark Pope<\/a><\/strong> to get what his predecessor couldn\u2019t just a year into the job, has folks missing the forest for the trees. This new project is a part of a grander vision that could make the University of Kentucky <\/a>a destination school and Lexington a destination city in ways that extend beyond any one sport or program.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just a celebration of basketball under Pope, it\u2019s a celebration of potentially creating something typically seen in professional sports towns. That\u2019s the goal with the in-development entertainment district, which will overlap with the visionary multi-use facility that includes <\/em>the new gym \u2014 among other UK HealthCare Sports Medicine ambulatory spaces and sports-related research areas.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just that,\u201d Barnhart said of the timing of the basketball practice facility on Tuesday. \u201cI think people are supremely focused on that because obviously that is the headline piece, but the reason that we\u2019re in conversation is because we\u2019re talking about an incredible multi-use district that gives us a chance to anchor a variety of thoughts and processes into one concept.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know that this (gym) happens singularly, if we do it by itself \u2014 or if we do anything by itself.\u00a0But to have an opportunity to wrap things around it and create an energy about it of different things\u00a0is a wonderful thing to think about.\u201d<\/p>\n UK says the overall objective and campus master plan is to create a lively, walkable hub of activity centered around Kroger Field and Memorial Coliseum featuring retail shops, restaurants, cafes, food trucks, outdoor and indoor entertainment venues, hotel lodging, academic student-centered services, collaborative spaces, public green space and event gathering. <\/p>\n The UK Board of Trustees approved further study of an entertainment district in June while the Champions Blue LLC\u2019s Board of Governors endorsed the pre-design and programming phases for the multi-use facility on Tuesday at Barnhart\u2019s request for resolution. The UK BOT will then vote to approve the recommendation on Thursday, officially kickstarting the development of schematic floor plans, conceptual renderings and a rough order of magnitude cost estimate. Those pre-design and programming phases will cost $1 million with a timeline of four to six months for getting a plan finalized.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to go see what the possibilities are.\u00a0People are going to bring us concepts as it relates to all of those pieces.\u00a0And I want to put them all together,\u201d Barnhart said. \u201cThe concept is twofold.\u00a0One is, does it help all of our teams accentuate the ability to practice and compete?\u00a0And two, does it create a space for us to be able to do some things that create ongoing revenue for us?\u201d<\/p>\n Barnhart compared Kentucky\u2019s vision to what the Milwaukee Bucks were able to accomplish with the Deer District outside Fiserv Forum or the downtown facilities in Indianapolis surrounding the Pacers\u2019 Gainbridge Fieldhouse. It could also resemble other projects blending world-class practice and training facilities with healthcare spaces, namely the Green Bay Packers with\u00a0Titletown Sports Medicine & Orthopedics<\/a>, the Atlanta Hawks with the\u00a0Emory Sports Medicine Complex<\/a>\u00a0and the Cleveland Cavaliers with the in-development\u00a0Cleveland Clinic Global Peak Performance Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n Prices range accordingly, the Hawks\u2019 90,000-square-foot complex coming in at $50 million while the Cavaliers\u2019 210,000-square-foot facility, set to open in 2027, is part of a massive $3.5 billion project. The latter will advance 35 acres of riverfront in Cleveland to bring 2,000 residential units and 850,000 square feet of office space \u2014 beyond restaurants, retail and entertainment.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what these next four to six months are for: Kentucky deciding just how big it wants to dream here (and how it will pay for it).<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s why the concept was worth thinking about. Nothing\u2019s done yet,\u201d Barnhart said. \u201cWe\u2019re not sure if it\u2019s going to even be affordable for us to do this. So lots of things to think about, but we\u2019re working our way through it, and we think that it\u2019s exciting. I\u2019m hopeful in about four to six months, we\u2019ll get some really quality information to be able to make some decisions\u00a0and see if we can go forward. And then, clearly, you\u2019ve got to be able to fund it.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCan you fund it?\u00a0Can you make it work financially? And so those are all major questions that are yet to be answered.\u201d<\/p>\n Until then, it\u2019s no more than an idea they\u2019re hoping can become a reality. What happens if they nail down an affordable plan they all like? What\u2019s the timeline from there, generally speaking?<\/p>\n The entertainment district and multi-use facility featuring the basketball practice gym can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and as we all know, the bigger the concept, the longer the construction. Fortunately, the school isn\u2019t new to breaking ground on projects, so Barnhart can take an educated stab at front- and back-end completion targets.<\/p>\n \u201cSix, eight weeks max. We can probably get it all done in six weeks,\u201d the UK AD joked.<\/p>\n In all seriousness, expect anywhere from a couple of years to a half-decade.<\/p>\n \u201cNo stinking idea,\u201d Barnhart continued. \u201cWe\u2019ve done building projects before, so my gut says you\u2019re probably a year in design and a year to a year and a half, probably, in construction \u2014 depending on what it is. The scope being what it is, if it\u2019s as big as we think it can be, it could take a while. But I have a unique enjoyment of watching things come out of the ground. It\u2019s pretty cool. So I\u2019d like it not to take five years. \u2026 <\/p>\n \u201cI think if we\u2019re efficient and we\u2019ve got some really cool concepts, I think we\u2019ve got some really, really high-level people that are going to be interested in helping us get there. I think pace of play, we can move it along.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.on3.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When asked for the reason behind his push for a new basketball practice facility on campus, UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart was quick to clear things up \u2014 or redirect the focus, rather. The drama of Coach Cal\u2019s very public request back in 2022 leading to a campus civil war, only for Mark Pope to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2068272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[386939],"class_list":["post-2068271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-mitch-barnhart"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Mitch-Barnhart-shares-timeline-vision-for-new-basketball-facility-and.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2068271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2068273,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068271\/revisions\/2068273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2068272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2068271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2068271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2068271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}