An artist rendering shows the future Football Operations Center.
San Jose State University and its Division of Intercollegiate Athletics will host a groundbreaking ceremony for the future construction of a new Football Operations Center on the east side of CEFCU Stadium, Home of the Spartans. The ceremony is scheduled for Wednesday morning, June 5 at 11 a.m., inside CEFCU Stadium.
Following the program, light refreshments will be served and tours of the renovated Spartan locker room in the Simpkins Football Center will be available.
This is a rain or shine event.
Conceived in 2016 as a centerpiece in the development of the university’s 62 acres of land at the South Campus, the Football Operations Center will be a multi-story structure centralizing all of Spartan Football’s needs into one state-of-the-art building. The new facility will enhance all facets of football operations and provide a first-class environment for our student-athletes to succeed in the classroom, in competition, and in life.
“The Football Operations Center will provide our football team, athletics department and the entire university state-of-the-art spaces to compete and learn. This critical project will provide much needed services for our football program and will be utilized by other sport teams and campus divisions. The center will provide enhanced game-day experiences for our fans,” said Marie Tuite, San Jose State’s director of athletics.
“This project is a crucial footprint to the overall renovation and enhancement of facilities on South Campus. Although our football program will be the main tenants, building multi-use facilities is always our objective.”
The new operations center will include locker rooms, an auditorium, offices, spectator seating on the 50-yard line and a Hall of Champions event space. The total project would be a rebuild on the stadium’s east side and also provide support to the Spartans’ men’s and women’s soccer programs.
Currently, the project budget is listed at $40-million. To date, $24.7 million has been raised for the Football Operations Center.
The work slated to take place during the summer includes removing bleacher sections along the stadium’s east side and landscape in order to set the foundation for building. During this time, San Jose State will initiate a formal bidding process to determine both construction and architecture firms.
After the 2019 football season, the next phase of work will include moving the hill and relocating the scoreboard including lighting currently located along the east side – all required preparation for the physical construction of the center.
When the Football Operations Center is completed, the football program would move out of the Simpkins Stadium Center, opened in 1993 on the 7th Street side of CEFCU Stadium, to the opposite side of the stadium.
“The Football Operations Center will be a game-changer for San Jose State University. We are building a winning program here and our new home will provide our players, coaches, and staff the opportunities to succeed on the field, academically, and through our Beyond Football program,” said San Jose State football head coach Brent Brennan.
“It will show future Spartans that we have a vision and a plan for a winning football program that goes to bowl games and competes for conference championships.”
The groundbreaking ceremony is open to the public. Parking will be available in the Park & Ride Lot, located across the street from the 7th Street side of CEFCU Stadium.
To learn how you can support Spartan football, please visit sjsufootball.com or contact Josh Thiel, deputy athletics director for athletics advancement, at 408-924-1697 or joshua.thiel@sjsu.edu.
About San Jose State University
The founding campus of the 23-campus California State University system, San Jose State provides a comprehensive university education, granting bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in 250 areas of study—offered through its eight colleges. With more than 35,000 students and nearly 4,370 employees, San Jose State University continues to be an essential partner in the economic, cultural and social development of Silicon Valley and the state, annually contributing 10,000 graduates to the workforce. The university is proud of the accomplishments of its more than 270,000 alumni, 60 percent of whom live and work in the Bay Area.
About San Jose State Athletics
San Jose State sponsors 22 (nine men’s and 13 women’s) NCAA Division I intercollegiate sports programs for approximately 470 student-athletes annually. In football, the Spartans are a member of Division I’s Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the NCAA’s highest level of competition.
The Spartans’ primary conference affiliation is with the Mountain West. Selected teams belong to the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF), the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) and the Golden Coast Conference (GCC).
San Jose State has 10 NCAA team championships and 52 NCAA individual titles. Sixty-two (62) Spartans competed in one or more Olympic Games. San Jose State athletes have won seven gold, six silver and seven bronze medals at the Olympics.
Annually, about one-third of the student-athlete population earns either institutional, conference or national recognition based on outstanding academic performance.