Penn State Football: Plans Submitted for Lasch Building Expansion

Penn State is proposing a renovation and 14,000-square-foot expansion to the Lasch Football Building as well as the addition of a “quarterback lab position room,” according to the agenda for Thursday’s State College Borough Planning Commission meeting.

The larger expansion includes ‘upgrades to the sports performance/weight room, back entry and expansions to the second floor office areas, exterior improvements include entryway upgrades to the back lobby and associated landscape, sidewalk and parking updates,” according to the planning commission agenda.

Existing parking areas near the Lasch Building would be demolished and preliminary plans show the structure extending past its current length. The expansion can be seen in grey below.

 

The quarterback position room addition totals 1,100 square feet, and while the plan set offers little insight about specifics, the design notes a need for indoor netting. Exterior work includes landscaping and sidewalks.

Planning commission will meet virtually at 7 p.m. on Thursday to review the preliminary land development plan and provide comment to be incorporated in a plan review letter. Penn State will still be required to submit a final land development plan for approval before the project can move forward.

The architect for both projects is HOK, a firm based in Philadelphia and the primary design team for multiple major sporting facility upgrades and developments across the nation. HOK was approved by the Penn State Board of Trustees in May 2019 as architect for a multi-phase project that includes renovations to the Lasch Building, the neighboring Holuba Hall and their adjacent practice fields. The estimated budget for the total project at the time of selection was $69 million.

The Lasch Building portion of the project was estimated at about $46 million. 

“I think you all probably are aware the campus has pressed pause on all construction projects,”  Penn State Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Sandy Barbour told reporters in early April.

“But in the case of Lasch, the next couple phases of the last renovations, we are in design so that work continues and certainly when we get back on campus, we’ll take direction from university leadership about construction.”

Barbour has been less forthcoming about the status of fundraising for the overall $69 million project which, in accordance to previous renovations, would be the result of private giving and not athletic department revenues. In turn, initial plans for upgrades are not always indicative of capital raised toward those same projects.

Lasch Building, the 21-year-old headquarters of the Nittany Lion football program has undergone multiple other renovations in the past four years, including a new player locker room.

StateCollege.com’s Geoff Rushton contributed to this report.