Marquette’s Hub for Athletic Performance Opens

Marquette University opened the Athletic and Human Performance Research Center (AHPRC) last week to positive reviews from the athletes that will call it home.

The Jesuit university continues to reshape its near west side campus. “The cutting-edge research that will take place inside this new facility will target optimizing athletic performance as well as exploring the relationships between exercise, fitness and the overall health and well-being of people across the lifespan,” university president Mike Lovell said in a statement.

The building will also provide the first permanent home for a number of the school’s athletic teams. The men’s golf and men’s and women’s lacrosse squads will all have locker rooms in the building.

And while the building is open, our photos show that general contractor Mortenson Construction still has work to do on the building’s exterior. The research component also needs to be built out on the interior.

The project is a scaled-down version of the university’s original plan for a multi-block development along W. Michigan St. just west of N. 6th St. The university publicly dropped that $120 million, 300,000-square-foot plan in late 2017, pivoting to a $24 million, 46,000-square-foot project.

“This new location is smarter and more convenient for our student-athletes, faculty and staff that will be housed in the AHPRC,” President Mike Lovell said in a statement. “While the location has changed, our vision to advance our mission through innovative sports and human performance research remains unchanged.” The university said the temporary dome it has installed at Valley Fields “fills the need for covered field space and is a more cost-efficient alternative to the large, permanent field house envisioned in the original AHPRC project.”

The new site is at the southwest corner of W. Wells St. and N. 12th St., across the street from the Al McGuire Center. In the past 14 years the university has altered every corner of the intersection, building the Al McGuire Center on the southeast corner, demolishing an apartment building that housed Hegarty’s Pub for a grass lot on the northeast corner, demolishing a warehouse complex for a planned parking lot on the northwest corner and building the AHPRC on the southwest corner.

The university is building the new research center in phases. The first phase will include space for faculty researchers, locker rooms, strength and conditioning spaces for the athletic department and laboratories for human performance research.

The university held a ceremonial groundbreaking for the facility in March 2018. The project is being designed by Perkins+Will and HGA. The site was most recently a surface parking lot.

The university recently celebrated the opening of The Commons, an 865-bed residence hall. Last week’s installment of Friday Photos covered the development of the Physician Assistant Studies building at the intersection of N. 17th St. and W. Clybourn St.

Photos

Interior Photos

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