Skandalaris Football Center Addition

In college football there is a fixed amount of time that a student athlete is allowed to spend participating in their sport. In 2006 when IDS was given the criteria to create a new football operations center for Michigan State University, it included a mandate to design the space for maximum face-time between the players and the coaching staff. The facility that housed the football program was hidden in an outdated building behind overgrown landscaping which was also highly symbolic of the team’s record at the time!

The primary goal of the of the Skandalaris Football Center project was to revitalize the MSU Football brand with an identifiable exterior and a facility that fully supported the team and coaching staff. The complex had to elevate the University’s ability to attract top-notch coaches and student athletes. President Simon’s campus-wide initiative, Boldness by Design‚ was a driving force as well. T

he result was the transformation of a sleepy one-story building into an open and exciting two-story facility that made a clear statement: We’re here to compete and win!

The center was completed in December 2008 with meeting rooms packed with smart technology, coaches facilities designed to recruit the best, and with a 28,000-square-foot two-story glass atrium addition, The Hall of History now celebrates the program’s storied past.

This was the first MSU football project ever for IDS. Athletic Director Gregg Ianni had worked with the team in the 80s and 90s and believed that IDS had successfully reinvigorated the MSU Basketball program with their work on the Breslin Center and the Berkowitz Complex addition. He was willing to give them the same assignment with the football program.