Only five months ago, an empty building sat across the highway from American Airlines Center. Now, within a matter of weeks, and perhaps even by Sept. 26, the Mavericks will call it home.
That’s how quickly the construction process on the Mavs’ new practice facility has moved along, although the word “renovation” might be more appropriate. The space, located half a mile west of the AAC, was already more than sufficient when Mavs proprietor Mark Cuban purchased the land this summer. All that had to be done was identifying what was going to go where.
“We didn’t need to make a lot of structural changes,” Cuban told Mavs.com this week. “We just needed to clean it up and add our specifics.”
With approximately 30,000 sq. ft. of space at their disposal, the Mavericks must have at least doubled their available space for practice courts, training and weight rooms, and basketball operations offices. The new facility will be home to two full-sized courts, an upgrade over the one currently at American Airlines Center. The locker room, weight room, and training room are all more spacious, and both hydrotherapy pools and a wet sauna will be available for use.
The extra space will pay immediate dividends during training camp in particular, when 20 players will use the facility every day and for many hours throughout the night. Currently the Mavs’ single practice court has eight baskets, which limits space during individual workout sessions. But with two full-sized courts, the players will have double the space to work on their game, be it with teammates, coaches, or just by themselves.
The entire basketball operations staff will eventually move to the facility as well. In addition to offices for president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson and an office and private conference room for head coach Rick Carlisle, each assistant coach will have a private office, along with spaces for the analytics and video staff. The coaches’, trainers’, and general managers’ offices will each have monitors on which they can livestream practices if other items require their attention during that time. Mark Cuban will have an office of his own in the space, and there will also be a workroom area for media.
The existing office space at American Airlines Center will remain at least mostly intact so the basketball operations staff can work from there on game nights if necessary.
The outside of the building will eventually sport two murals, one of which is an in-process blue “Dallas Strong” piece; the other will be ’80s-themed and feature the old-school logo and color scheme.
You can already see the makings of a #DallasStrong Dirk mural outside the new @dallasmavs practice facility. pic.twitter.com/0qoUuywVyY
— Earl K. Sneed (@EarlKSneed) September 8, 2016
The facility is located in the Design District, which until now has been disconnected from Downtown. But soon a bridge will be cleared and a walkway put in place which will allow fans to park at the facility on game nights and walk directly to the arena. For reference, the parking space is just across the highway beyond the DART station to the west of the AAC. That project could be completed as early as this season.
Eventually, the Mavericks also envision building a retail space and possibly a Mavericks-themed bar in that lot, as well, although that is still some years down the pipeline.
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