Cal sports teams' dynamic new home taking shape

(01-07) 22:09 PST -- It is designed to look like landscaping that parallels the western sweep of Memorial Stadium, a neat trick for something more than 100 yards long taking up 143,000 square feet over four levels.

Its component elements are simple - wood, glass and concrete - topped by a curving plaza where spectators can gather before games before walking into something that was old but will soon be new again.

Expected to be completed in September, Cal's $153 million Student-Athlete High Performance Center will house 12 of the university's varsity sports teams, including separate wings for football and the so-called Olympic sports flanking a large common area devoted to training, nutrition and sports medicine.

"The paradigm shift is so large, people haven't gotten a grasp of it," said Bob Milano Jr., Cal's assistant athletic director in charge of capital planning and management. "It's going to be a beautiful building. We're trying to link the athletic facilities ... with the campus. When Memorial Stadium was built (in 1923), it was in the oak woodlands, away from the core campus. It wasn't a place that was part of everyday campus life.

"This is the building that links the two."

Right now, though, it's a shell of what it will be in less than a year, a cement-dusty place of hard-hatted workers going at it seven days a week amid various equipment and tools, stacks of lumber, exposed conduits and the sense that something big is beginning to take shape.

One early impression: Football coach Jeff Tedford's future office seems surprisingly modest for the highest-paid employee in the University of California system.

"We tried to right-size things," Milano said. "We don't necessarily believe bigger is best. Having it bigger means you're farther away from your staff and support services."

Another impression: With such a gem of a facility designed to serve every need of Cal's varsity athletes, it might be difficult to get them to leave for something as mundane as a classroom.

On the 'cutting edge'

"It's the physical manifestation of our High Performance Initiative," athletic director Sandy Barbour said. "From a technical standpoint, it will allow us to take advantage of cutting-edge opportunities for high performance. It opens up a world of opportunities for our student-athletes to receive efficient training and coaching and support."

The High Performance Center is a joint project between the architectural firms HNTB of Kansas City and Los Angeles and Studios in San Francisco.

"One of the challenges of the project was to get as much natural light in as possible so it doesn't feel so underground," said Milano, noting that two levels of the building are below ground. "I think the architects did a pretty good job. It's designed not to look like a building."

Fans coming to Cal football games in 2012 (the Bears will play at AT&T; Park in 2011 while Memorial Stadium is renovated and made seismically safe) will approach the High Performance Center along Piedmont Avenue before walking up a flight of stairs to get to the landscaped plaza and then up another series of steps to the concourse level of the stadium.

Emphasis on stadium

"The architecture of the building is very reverential and respectful to the old stadium," Milano said. "It's intended to look like a landscaped wall, not like a building, to make the architectural emphasis on the stadium."

Starting next fall, folks looking out from the plaza might not realize they are standing above a hive of activity where it will be possible for student-athletes to take a chilly dip in the Polar Plunge after a workout; visit with a doctor, trainer or sports psychologist; have a training table meal; or meet with teammates and coaches in rooms dedicated for their particular sports.

"It really is a simple, honest building," Milano said. "A lot of the concrete structure will be exposed - rugged, timeless, out in the open."

The common area between the center's two wings for training and conditioning is remarkably high, more than two stories, to enable athletes to throw whatever ball their sport uses and not worry about it bouncing off the ceiling.

Of the dozen varsity teams that will use the facility, the one with the biggest need is the football team, for so long crowded into rooms built into existing spaces along the concourse of the west side of the stadium.

'Boost to recruiting'

"I think it's going to be a huge boost to recruiting," Barbour said. "I think Jeff (Tedford) will tell you he's already starting to experience that. In combination with the renovation of the stadium, it makes a huge statement about our commitment to student-athletes. It's the kind of thing 17- and 18-year-olds grasp."

For his 10th year in Berkeley, Tedford will at last have a facility he can be proud to show recruits who expect no less from their campus visits. No longer will rival schools be able to use facilities as a reason for Cal-bashing to recruits.

"I think it will be a positive," Tedford said. "There's a lot for us to recruit to. One of them was not facilities. Anywhere people have been, their facilities are better than ours. That concern should be alleviated. (Incoming freshmen) will be in the High Performance Center when they get here."

The sweeping structure is taking shape as those recruits are finishing off their senior years in high school, unaware of just exactly what will await them in the fall of 2012.

Polar Plunge, anyone?

E-mail John Crumpacker at jcrumpacker@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle