Texas Tech Scores New Facility with ezIQC®

Challenge

For major college football programs, the competition for recruits never stops. Teams are always looking for an edge, an advantage to attract the next blue-chip prospect to campus. Modern, state-of-the-art facilities are a great way to get a recruit’s attention.

Texas Tech University football is a prominent program with a slew of bowl victories under its belt and a national brand. Still, it faces fierce competition for recruits from Big 12 opponents like Texas and Oklahoma and from major programs outside of its conference. To get a leg up on its rivals, the Red Raiders football team started building a new locker room in March of 2017.

The quality and execution of this project was of the utmost importance. In major college football, a locker room is an outward sign of the program’s commitment to the health, comfort and success of its players. A little “wow factor” doesn’t hurt either.

The project was of extreme time sensitivity as the team was temporarily relocated until summer workouts were scheduled to begin on July 1, 2017. To make the big reveal special for the players, the project was kept under wraps. Constant control of access to the site was paramount. There was also only one access point inside the locker room which is part of the entire football training facility. Material loading and unloading was a challenge due to limited access, while also ensuring the areas adjacent were safe, clean and secure.

Solution

Given the tight window of time available to complete the project, Texas Tech opted for Job Order Contracting (JOC) over traditional procurement methods. JOC is a proven construction procurement process ideal for use on renovation and alteration work, responding to emergencies, addressing a backlog of deferred repairs and straightforward new construction. Instead of dealing with the time and expense of bidding each project separately, with Job Order Contracting, the contract has already been competitively awarded for an indefinite number of projects, enabling contractors to respond quickly and construction to begin faster. In Texas Tech’s case, JOC spared the school from a protracted bid process. As part of a cooperative purchasing network, Texas Tech accessed JOC through ezIQC®, a product that allows co-op members to take advantage of volume discounts.

Results

The entire layout of the locker room was reconfigured. An existing lounge was converted into locker room space, creating a new players’ lounge with LED ceiling lights and multi-colored controlled LED accent lighting, storage for equipment and custom display cases for the team uniform. Completing a renovation this extensive would have been impossible using traditional procurement methods.

When the project was completed, TTU media made a video showing the football team’s first surprise visit to the locker room highlighting its’ features. This is the “showpiece” of the football program now, the crown jewel of the recruiting process. This facility now brings Texas Tech Football into the same realm of the other Big 12 programs it faces in competition on and off the field.

See more projects like this. Visit the Harry M. Mellon Award of Excellence page.