The Georgia Institute of Technology Athletics Department recently celebrated a milestone in the construction of the Thomas A. Fanning Student-Athlete Performance Center. On March 8, the project team and stakeholders gathered for the topping-out ceremony as the construction crew installed the center’s final steel beam. Interestingly, several of the steel members used in the 100,000-square-foot project already had a long history with the university.

Located in the northeast corner of Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field, the Fanning Center is being constructed on the footprint of the former Edge/Rice Center. When complete, the Fanning Center will serve as a state-of-the-art hub for Georgia Tech student-athletes, offering new and improved strength and conditioning and sports medicine facilities as well as a sports science lab, nutrition services, and meeting and office spaces.

In addition to communicating the university’s commitment to student-athletes, the project also puts the institution’s sustainability values on display. Designed by the S/L/A/M Collaborative (SLAM), with Walter P Moore as structural engineer and constructed by DPR Construction, the project incorporated multiple carbon- and energy-reducing strategies. Most significantly, it included repurposing steel members from a portion of the Bobby Dodd Stadium’s upper deck that was demolished to establish the Fanning Center structure.

Ideation to Implementation

The project first broke ground in March 2024. During the planning process, however, the Walter P Moore team recognized a unique opportunity to sustainably reclaim steel members from the stadium to reduce carbon emissions and promote sustainable design.

The goals were to repurpose the existing structural elements without compromising the project timeline or budget, to improve material circularity, to reduce waste and to significantly lower the project’s embodied carbon footprint. This required seamless collaboration between Green Circle Demolition and DPR Construction managers to ensure the salvage, refabrication and integration of the steel beams into the new structure was successful.

Team members had a unique advantage in that they were able to study the stadium plans and develop a solid strategy for removing, refabricating and reusing the steel beams.

“Steel reclamation, salvage, deconstruction and reuse are not common practices,” said Kelly Roberts, PE, SE, LEED AP BD+C, principal and managing director of Walter P Moore. “Typically, steel is recycled, and when a building is being demolished, you’ll separate out the metals because they have a very high recycled value.”

To be recycled, steel is melted down in furnaces that are heated to at least 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, a highly energy-intensive process, after which the steel is most often recast and rerolled into new steel shapes. In contrast, the team developed a strategy to remove the steel from the stadium structure, transport it to a local fabrication shop to receive new connection material and then return it to the project site for use in the new Fanning Center. While the process sounds straightforward, it required extensive pre-planning, collaboration and documentation review as well as group site walks to get all members on the same page.

Reimagining Materials

Most of the steel members that were good candidates for reuse were part of the raker system of the upper deck of the stadium, according to Will Childs, P.E., S.E., project manager at Walter P Moore.

“Those were taken from being sloped or trussed members, supporting seating units, and then taken down and cut into shorter lengths, then reused as a beam or column in the new building,” Childs said.

The team also evaluated whether salvage from an adjacent building that also being demolished, the Edge-Rice Building, was possible. However, much of that steel was composite, meaning it had been cast integrally with the steel deck and concrete above as part of the floor.

“That’s actually something that the steel industry is researching right now: how to make more steel salvageable and develop some best practices to make sure we can get the most out of salvage, deconstruction and reuse to make this approach more widespread,” Roberts said.

In the meantime, Roberts encourages teams that are considering similar strategies to begin conversations as early as possible with all project partners. As the value of demolition steel is often factored into the demolition subcontractor’s contract, having the conversation early can help address financial and contractual questions in a timely manner.

“In this case, we also got the construction manager at-risk involved early,” added Marc Clear, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, principal and national market leader with SLAM. “They were hired just a few weeks after the design team. A design-build method could also deliver that capability, but having the demolition scope as part of the primary project was key.”

Ultimately, the salvage effort was cost- and schedule-neutral; however, the sustainability benefits were clear. According to the team’s calculations, the strategy saved approximately 25,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide, which is roughly equivalent to 60,000 miles driven by an average gas-powered vehicle.

When the project is completed in spring 2026, many of the salvaged steel members and pipes will be visible to visitors, establishing clear design connections between the two structures and telling a larger sustainability story.

Learn more about this project in the May/June digital edition of �Ӱ�ԭ��ҕ�l, coming soon.

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ATLANTA—Construction has started on the Thomas A. Fanning Student Athlete Performance Center, a 100,000-square-foot facility at Georgia Tech that will house facilities dedicated to nutrition, sports medicine, strength training and mental health services. Additionally, the Fanning Center will feature meeting spaces to be used exclusively by Georgia Tech football and support staff. The Fanning Center will also house Georgia Tech’s first sports science lab, wherein technicians will make use of in-house data analytics programs to track individual performance.

Designed by the S/L/A/M Collaborative (SLAM), the Fanning Center will feature several sustainability efforts including repurposing steel from the campus’s Bobby Dodd Stadium. (Fanning Center will be part of the Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field complex.) The Fanning Center’s carbon footprint will also be partially offset with such energy-saving design elements as cross-laminated timber placed throughout the new athletic facility. The center is being constructed atop the footprint of the former Edge/Rice Center.

The Fanning Center is named in honor of alumnus Dr. Thomas A. Fanning, whose dedication to forward-thinking energy usage serves as a model for the Georgia Tech community. Fanning also served at various times on the Georgia Tech Foundation Board of Trustees, the Georgia Tech Advisory Board, the Alexander-Tharpe Fund Board of Directors, the Scheller College of Business Advisory Board and Transforming Tomorrow: The Campaign for Georgia Tech Steering Committee, where he serves as co-chair.

Fanning was one of several honored attendees at the recent groundbreaking—including several designers and builders who graduated from Georgia Tech.

“This is an incredibly exciting day for Georgia Tech athletics, as we move one step closer to delivering a first-class, state-of-the-art facility for our student-athletes,” said Director of Athletics J Batt. “We’re thankful for the generosity of Tom Fanning and all our generous supporters who have donated to this project, for the visionary leadership of [Georgia Tech President] Dr. [Ángel] Cabrera, and for our partners at SLAM and DPR Construction, all of whom have been integral in reaching this milestone.”

“It’s been incredibly special to have led the design for my alma mater, creating a new epicenter of athletics that is holistically dedicated to student-athletes’ success,” SLAM lead architect and principal Marc Clear said at the ceremony. “The groundbreaking of the Thomas A. Fanning Student-Athlete Performance Center is an exciting milestone in creating this technology-rich home for GT Athletics.”

Added Brian Oliver, DPR Construction project executive, and also a Georgia Tech alumnus: “As the college athletics landscape evolves, we’re thrilled to start bringing Georgia Tech’s vision for student-athletes and its campus to life.”

During his time at Georgia Tech, Oliver was part of the NCAA Final Four men’s basketball team in 1990.

“We’re also proud that this project will help support opportunities for local workers in the skilled trades, many of whom feel personal connections with the campus and its athletic program,” Oliver said.

The Fanning Center is due to open in the spring of 2026.

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ATLANTA— A $9 million renovation of Russ Chandler Stadium, the home of Georgia Tech baseball has begun. JE Dunn Construction is the general contractor on the project, and Collins Cooper Carusi/Populous is the architect.

The project involves upgrading amenities and heightened experiences for fans and student-athletes. The demolition of an existing one-story building paves the way for construction of a 25,379-square-foot, two-story structure. The new facility will include three indoor batting tunnels, indoor pitching lab, event hall space, concessions and roof terrace. Interior renovation of 1,618 square feet will include new suites and ticket booth.

The concourse level will feature an atrium that also functions as a Georgia Tech Baseball Hall of Fame. It will be the first thing fans see when they enter the stadium—an iconic point of entry—intended to serve as both a welcome and a celebration. The atrium is also designed to convert into a 40-seat teaching auditorium on non-game days.

Other features include a new outdoor plaza; a new high-tech scoreboard; all-new, expanded restroom facilities and concessions (including a premium club area); a new alumni locker room; and an expanded training facility that will be open year-round for Tech players, and available to alumni/Major League Baseball players during the offseason.

To greatly enhance player development functions within the stadium, renovations will also include a training center, three 20-foot-wide batting cages, two 10-foot-wide pitching tunnels, and a video analysis room. The batting cages and pitching tunnels will be divided by retractable netting with turf flooring and a raised pitching mound.

With 400-plus student-athletes across 17 varsity sports, Georgia Tech competes at the highest level of intercollegiate athletics as a member of NCAA Division I and the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), while also developing young people who will change the world. Georgia Tech has long been a leader in innovation in college athletics with the NCAA CHAMPS/Life Skills Program (known as the Total Person Program at GT), commitments to athletics scholarships until a student-athlete graduates and the use of virtual reality in recruiting among the many concepts that originated on The Flats.

The improvements are aimed at supporting player development, enhancing the fan experience, and celebrating the Yellow Jackets’ rich baseball history. The team has won five national championships during their illustrious history (four in football – 1917, 1928, 1952 and 1990; one in women’s tennis – 2007), appeared in two Final Fours in men’s basketball (1990 and 2004) and three College World Series in baseball (1994, 2002 and 2006). Combining world-class education with top-notch athletics, Georgia Tech has produced 87 Academic All-Americans.

The project is slated for completion before next baseball season.

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ATLANTA — Atlanta-based Georgia Power awarded the Georgia Institute for Technology (Georgia Tech), also in Atlanta, with a $500,000 rebate check on July 14. The rebate is the largest ever issued through Georgia Power’s Commercial Energy Efficiency Program, and was given to Georgia Tech to mark the completion of its most recent effort to implement energy-efficiency upgrades at two facilities on campus. Georgia Power presented the rebate check to Georgia Tech at a special event at the Georgia Tech Environmental Biosystems Building.

Georgia Tech earned the rebate by completing various energy-efficiency upgrades that began in October 2015 and were completed in March of this year. The planning and design process for these upgrades began even earlier in June 2014, followed by an energy audit conducted by Johnson Controls (headquartered in Milwaukee, Wis.) in December 2014. The project had a budget of $7.7 million. Locally based RMF Engineering was the design engineer on the project, with multiple project committee and team members from Georgia Tech as part of the planning team.

The upgrades included upgrading water chillers that serve a large portion of the campus with , replacing existing motors with high-efficiency inverter-rated motors and conversions of condenser water pumps. Specifically, the project accomplished the following: RMF Engineering added a variable frequency drive (VFD) to one 2,000-ton chiller, converted four cooling tower fans to VFD drives, added 14 pumps with a VFD drive and replaced two 1,000-ton chillers with one 2,000-ton VFD chiller. Additionally, Georgia Tech received Georgia Power credit for a 3,000-ton VFD chiller that had been previously installed, which also impacted the amount of the rebate.

With the completion of these upgrades, Georgia Power estimates Georgia Tech will be able to save more than 16 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) annually. “Basically, the project was a chill water plant optimization scheme that allowed us to more efficiently make and distribute chilled water throughout the campus,” said Greg Spiro, P.E., CEM, senior design engineer for facilities management at Georgia Tech. “For example, by installing VFDs on pumps, chillers and support elements in the plant, we were able to provide more precise motor control, which greatly impacts energy usage.”

The primary objective for this project was to reduce the power consumed, per ton of cooling by reducing kilowatt used per ton (kw/ton) of campus chilled water production, according to Donald Alexander, P.E, RCDD, CEM, academic design professional for facilities management at Georgia Tech and project manager for the energy upgrades project. After Johnson Controls completed its audit in 2014, the Georgia Tech Committee evaluated the recommendations made by the company and decided what combination of measures were best.

“With a project and budget of this size, the development stage was a very important and intense portion of the initiative,” said Alexander. “There was significant negotiation of staying within budget parameters while also assuring that the required energy savings would be met.”

During both the planning and construction periods, the Georgia Tech Project Committee members met every two weeks to review progress and assess recommendations, according to Alexander. “The actual contracting process was a challenge for Georgia Tech, as performance contracting was new to the financial and legal teams of the Georgia Tech,” he said.

Alexander spent a significant amount of time and effort steering the project through the many phases of approval, added Spiro.

Georgia Power has awarded more than $44 million in rebates through the Commercial Energy Efficiency Program since the program started in 2011. The program includes educational resources, rebates and incentives available to all commercial customers such as school systems, universities, hospitals, museums and more.

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