New Field House for Bowman Gray Stadium Under Construction

Winston-Salem Sports & Entertainment Complex                   August 30, 2006
Contact: WSSEC: Chuck Webster, 725-5635 x 455
WSSU: Aaron Singleton, 750-3152

Representatives from the city, Winston-Salem State University and Winston-Salem Speedway gathered today to celebrate the groundbreaking for a new $4.7 million field house at Bowman Gray Stadium.

The field house is a collaboration between the city, which owns Bowman Gray Stadium, and Winston-Salem State University, which will be the main tenant. The school is contributing $3 million toward cost of the new field house.

Mayor Allen Joines said that the field house will further tie together the city and Winston-Salem State. “This new field house is a tangible symbol of the growing cooperation we have enjoyed in recent years as the university and the city have worked together to diversify our economy and make Winston-Salem a better place to live and work. I am also pleased that with the recent contract extension the city signed with Winston-Salem Speedway, Bowman Gray racing will also be a continuing part of this great facility.” Dr. Michelle Howard-Vital, the interim chancellor of Winston-Salem State University, said, “This new multi-million dollar facility will provide our student-athletes with a first-class training complex to prepare them for the competition they will face at the Division I level. It will provide all our students another venue to host conferences, forums, workshops, balls and other activities they plan each year. Our faculty, staff and community at-large will also benefit in similar ways when this new facility is completed. We are grateful to our partner, the city of Winston-Salem, for its steadfast support in this project and the many others it has supported over the years to help transform our great university.”

Bowman Gray Stadium was built in 1937 as a project of the Works Progress Administration, a federal agency set up during the Great Depression to provide employment through the construction of public facilities. The stadium was a gift of Mrs. Bowman Gray, who donated $30,000 for the city’s required 30-percent match of the stadium’s $100,000 cost. A 1954 expansion increased the stadium’s capacity to its current 17,000 seats. Today the stadium is home field for the WSSU Rams football team. In the summer it is host to NASCAR’s longest running weekly racing series.

Besides sharing the cost of the field house, the city and the university worked together designing the new building. Its brick and stucco construction will tie in with other buildings on the Winston-Salem State campus.

The two-story, 20,000-square-foot field house will have locker rooms and training rooms for the home and visiting teams, a referee locker room, and a weight room. It will also have a large banquet room on the upper level, along with a warming kitchen and conference rooms.

A new video scoreboard, measuring 18 by 23 feet, will be built into the field house to serve spectators in the stadium.

During the summer racing season, drivers and speedway officials will use the visitor locker and training rooms. The field house will also have a concession area to serve the pits.

The field house was designed by Thomas Hughes Architecture, PC. The general contractor is Triad Builders of King Inc. Construction is scheduled to be completed in late summer 2007.

Printable renderings of the new field house. (Adobe PDF file)

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