I hate this building. I really do. I hate that it doesn't have air conditioning. I hate that it has what most likely is asbestos falling in one of the bathrooms. And I really hate that it is never open when I need to risk Mesothelioma to use one of those bathrooms while on my 8th consecutive hour of Green Route (shout out to our UTS readers!) But most of all, I hate that this is where most of our athletic offices are located - inside this clamshell-shaped dump. With the exception of football (McCue Center) and basketball (JPJ), all the team and athletic staff offices are located in this antiquated spaceship. As much as I want to tear this building apart from an aesthetic and structural standpoint - using my engineering degree for probably the first time ever - I think U-Hall is much more of an eyesore symbolically. Let me explain.
UVA prides itself on being a well-rounded and successful athletic department with success in revenue and non-revenue sports, always in hot pursuit of elite Director's Cup (formerly Sear's Cup) standings. UVA Athletics also has some of the deepest pockets in the business thanks to rich donors and a newfound optimism surrounding the revenue sports. While it's nice to be able to bring recruits to your nice stadium and indoor practice facility you still need to show them that the entire department is well rounded. Let's take a look at Stanford, a department that I am sure no one would have a problem being the role model.
That is the Arrillaga Family Sports Center at Stanford. That bad boy is brand new and is home to everything from the athletic department offices to the weight rooms to the Stanford athletic hall of fame. Can you imagine what a building like THIS would do for recruiting in ALL sports, not just football or basketball? This sort of tricked-out athletically-focused building would help the student athletes by keeping everything in one spot, and working smoothly. A new building like this could hold classrooms for tutoring, weight rooms and training rooms for workouts, medical offices for rehab, not to mention excellent meeting rooms for coaches and players and recruits.
Obviously this is years away from happening but you have to think at some point there is going to be an influx of cash coming into the program as football rises up. This is the perfect recruiting tool to take a kid in any sport into and would be a strong symbol of academic success. Plus there is already a place to put it - on the site that currently houses that clamshell spaceship pile of crap, University Hall. It's time to be serious about being a well rounded program and get a real athletics office building. The next capital project for the Athletic Department should be to raze U-Hall and build something worthwhile.
I don't disagree with your post but part of me would die with the loss of U-Hall. The best UVA games I ever watched took place in that building (St. Valentine's Day Massacre anyone?) but I think it's more likely they will build the replacement building first and then tear down U-Hall. Otherwise you have to find a temporary home for all the teams and offices that call the building home and we know the premium that exists on space at UVA. I say the build the replacement in the Cage parking lot and then replace U-Hall with a series of smaller buildings and paths to connect the area as more of a UVA Sports Complex much like the Klockner/Davenport layout across the street
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