?

On Oct. 22, The Lantern’s sports editors Reilly Cahill and Ally Wolfe had a sit-down interview with Ohio State’s athletic director Ross Bjork for a Q&A in his office.?

Editor’s note:

  • On Monday: This article which covers plans for facility renovations across the university area is the first of three from the conversation that will be published.
  • On Tuesday: An article will cover Bjork’s perspective on the changing college sports landscape, including the Protect College Sports Act and College Football Playoff expansion as well as working with president Ravi Bellamkonda.
  • On Wednesday: An article will cover Bjork’s stance on the state of the football team, expectations for Ohio State’s men’s and women’s basketball teams and thoughts on maintaining 36 varsity sports at Ohio State.

Here are Bjork’s answers to questions from The Lantern on renovation plans for Ohio State’s athletic facilities.?

Some answers were edited for clarity.?

 

Q: A new-look vision of the Woody Hayes Athletic Center was posted on social media after the Indiana football game. Is there a timeline for that project and what needs to get done for that to happen?

A: The thing in facilities that we talk about a lot is facilities are about time and money, so how much time do we have, to your point, and then how much money is it going to take? We’ve got off to a good start in fundraising, that’s another reason why we went public, is we have enough momentum in the fundraising space.?

But this project has been talked about long enough, and it’s time to go public. It’s time to put our foot on base that this is happening. It gives our development staff a real tangible project that they can point to and tell our donors this time around it is happening because we’ve had different starts and stops. We’ve had to adjust for NIL purposes. We’ve had to say, “You know what, can’t do the project yet, because we need to shift our focus to NIL.”

Now we’re in a position where we have great momentum on the field, in fundraising, on the business side. So if we can get through this fall and get to a place where we’re at 70 to 80 percent of the project money committed, then we can go to the Board of Trustees. Then we can seek approval to hire an architect, that kicks off about a 10- to-12-month timeline. Then once you have the design, then you can go to construction approval.?

My hope is that sometime in early 2028 is when we can break ground and really start the construction process, and then it’s probably a 14- to-16-month construction. So that would put us in place to be done by the 2029 season. That’s the goal, that’s the plan.?

There’s a lot of things that have to happen, but it’s mainly time and money, and we’re in a good spot with both. And we’re going to be aggressive and really get this project off the ground. It’s the right thing to do, and it’s timely.

 

Q: Are there any other facilities on campus that you’re looking at or things in the future that you have in the works?

A: We have a great athletic district, we have great sort of facility infrastructure in a lot of ways, but then we have aging facilities as well. The Ohio Stadium is the stadium, it’s always going to be under construction, we’re always going to be doing something there.?

But the whole St. John [Arena] corridor, what’s the vision around that? What’s the future of that? We really have to have a robust plan for that, that has a domino effect.

We need a new ice hockey arena, so we have different concepts, different ideas, we’re trying to get that off the ground.

We want to put our academic support services in one building. Right now, we’re in two different buildings. We want one building.?

We want to expand and renovate the [Ohio State] Golf Course Clubhouse because that’s a destination for the golfing community, and we have a great membership base, so that’s a project that’s on the list.?

Technology in Ohio Stadium is something that will happen for fall of 2027. We’re always going to be looking at different pieces and parts within the stadium to modernize and innovate, eventually the mechanical systems, the electrical systems, the rotunda, all of that has to be upgraded and modernized. The Jesse Owens Plaza, [outside of Ohio Stadium], we want to make that speak more to a grand entrance, so that’s on the list.?

I could go on and on because there’s lots of things, and you know the thing about facilities in this era is people talk about NIL, and there’s a lot of money going to the athletes, and we support all of that, but you can’t forget about facilities. Facilities still have to speak to player development, athlete support.?

There’s a few other things, our tennis courts need an upgrade at our tennis facility, so that’s a project that’ll be on the list. Eventually, we’d love to get our gymnastics and our fencing program back on campus, there’s a building over on west campus that we occupy. We’d love to put a training complex somewhere within our athletic district for those sports. So there is a long list of facilities.?

We will not run out of things to do, and then there’s always little things. If we look out the window here, we’re replacing our baseball field, and that turf is 15 years old, and so that’s sort of a maintenance project. So there’s always going to be little things like that. Over the last couple years, we’ve done about $60 million of smaller things that add up to a pretty big number that most people know about. But then there’s some things that some people don’t know about, and so we’re going to continue the pursuit of excellence in the facility front.

 

Q: What does the future hold for the Schottenstein Center?

A: Back to what we talked about earlier is the domino effect of ice hockey. If we can build an ice hockey arena, when we build an ice hockey arena, that’s the plan, right? Then we can take the men’s program and move them out of the Schottenstein Center. That will free up a lot of things that we can do to make it more basketball-specific.?

Right now, we have to have the length of the seats in the end zone because of the ice. Their locker room space where the [men’s ice hockey team] occupy, that can be freed up for other things for the players. So, there are ideas and there are concepts around the Schottenstein Center, but we can’t do anything until the ice situation gets solved.

 

Q: Following up on the new ice hockey arena, is there a specific timeline for that?

A: Time and money, right? So we’re mapping out the financial plan, we have some money set aside, we have some fundraising money. What we’re working on now is what’s the true cost of that building. Unfortunately, costs keep going up, so we’re trying to manage, OK, what’s the size? What’s the cost? How much can we fundraise against that??

There’s also a few other ideas that we’re working on, but we need to get that project off the ground in many ways. So we’re working hard every single day.