The NCAA Executive Committee at its October 29 meeting in Indianapolis approved a $35 million, 130,000 square-foot addition to the NCAA national office that will be funded primarily through savings and funds currently budgeted for leased space.

Artist's rendering of the 130,000 square-foot addition to the NCAA national office.

Construction will begin in spring 2010 and is projected to be completed early in 2012.

Current NCAA national office space accommodates approximately 500 full-time, part-time and contract employees − plus meeting space, technology services and other administrative functions − in space designed for fewer than 350.

The office relocated from a Kansas City suburb to Indianapolis in 1999. Based on projections made in the mid-1990s, the national office building was designed to accommodate an annual growth of 2 percent in staffing over 20 years.

In the intervening decade, though, the Association has doubled the size of the enforcement investigation staff, expanded its research, and academic and membership affairs staffs to accommodate a comprehensive academic-reform effort, and brought the NCAA Eligibility Center into the national office environment. (The Eligibility Center’s 70 employees are being housed temporarily in the Association’s off-site warehouse facility in Indianapolis.)

NCAA Executive Committee chair Michael Adams said Executive Committee members cited a favorable construction climate among reasons to embark on the capital project at this time.

“The economic downturn of the last 18 months has postponed or indefinitely delayed many facility expansions within higher education and elsewhere,” Adams said. “However, there is timeliness in terms of both competition among contractors in a sparse construction market and cost savings for construction commodities that cannot prudently be ignored even in a conservative budgeting approach.”

NCAA Interim President Jim Isch said local construction projects have been 10 to 20 percent below previously projected costs.

Also, additional savings from requiring more than 95 percent of committee meetings to be held at the national office will be under-realized without the additional space.

The addition will integrate with the existing national office in terms of design and will significantly enhance the availability of flexible space that can transition among various uses. Included in the total square footage are about 24,000 square feet of meeting and conference space in addition to 106,000 square feet for office space.

Isch said a number of financing options are being explored, including bonds or NCAA reserves.  The NCAA Executive Committee will review the financing options after the first of the year and will determine the best approach for the Association.

He said already budgeted space and services rental ($2 million annually) for the Eligibility Center will significantly offset Association’s debt-service obligation. Balance of repayment costs and schedule range from $300,000 annually over 20 years to $3.7 million annually over six years.

The operational costs for the facility will be financed by internal reallocations.