IMG Academy’s team business building set to open in February

The presentation gave a glimpse into the growth that’s transpired at IMG Academy within the past decade.

Then the audience that comprised the Sarasota Center for Architecture was given a sneak peak, albeit from afar, at the next phase of the campus expansion at IMG.

To the south of IMG’s field house will be the team business building, a one-stop shop for teams and organizations that arrive for training stints at the private sports academy.

“The interesting thing about that building is it’s replicable or repeatable,” Fawley-Bryant director of design Stu Henderson said. “That pod will be completed, there’s room for another one, there’s room for restroom buildings and an entry gate to the soccer complex. And then we repeat that whole system again. So those pods just keep marching down as much as they need to be.”

The Center for Architecture group was at IMG for a tour of its facilities, which included stops at the field house, locker room, student center, sports performance center and press box. The tour also highlighted what’s to come in the next few months, with the team business building set for completion in February.

It’s a 20,000-square-foot facility that will house IMG Soccer and includes locker rooms for athletes and coaches. It also will have four rentable locker rooms with showers, restrooms, laundry and training rooms.

“The idea got to be, how do we accommodate different-size teams that want to come down?” Henderson said. “And so the idea of an expandable locker room and team business space came about. That building is all about efficiency.”

The team business building is the latest in a joint venture between IMG, Fawley-Bryant and Tandem Construction to expand the facilities on the 540-plus acres on IMG’s campus.

Fawley-Bryant does the design work and Tandem constructs the buildings, providing a cohesive effort alongside IMG.

The academy’s west campus underwent a facelift many years ago, with Fawley-Bryant and Tandem completing the 15-year master plan in eight years.

The revamped west campus includes the stadium, which is used for high school football, lacrosse and soccer, as well as the field house, expansion to the baseball complex, academic center, performance and sport science center, and more.

IMG also is home to events outside the high school level, including Major League Soccer teams using it for preseason training and matches.

The team business building will alleviate the need for teams to take care of smaller day-to-day tasks elsewhere.

“Accommodations is one thing,” IMG vice president of sales and marketing Chris Ciaccio said. “Team meeting space, coaches’ offices, locker rooms, ability to do laundry, ability to get ice – those are the things that you kind of take for granted when you’re at home. And when you’re traveling, it actually becomes a bit of a nuisance. It was our goal to make it convenient.”

This story was originally published January 26, 2017 at 4:28 PM with the headline "IMG Academy’s team business building set to open in February."