UVa’s Board of Visitors endorses bubbled practice field

A bubbled-over football field could be the answer athletic officials at the University of Virginia are searching for as they look to limit the number of team practices canceled by inclement weather.

The idea has circulated for more than two years among officials, but was formally brought before UVa’s Board of Visitors last week. The board endorsed the idea, and will next take it up once a design for the bubble is completed.

The project’s cost is estimated at $8 million and includes installing an artificial surface and a foundation for an air-supported structure over the field.

“We can just fit a football field inside it,” Jon Oliver, UVa’s executive associate athletics director, said of the proposed bubble, which would stand roughly 70 feet tall at its highest point.

The university has not begun raising money — all private funds — for the project, but Richard Murray, UVa’s associate athletics director for public relations, said the school is looking at putting the bubble in the area of Onesty Hall near University Hall.

UVa has approximately 650 students competing at the varsity level each year and does not have an indoor space that meets what today is considered an ample indoor practice area by many schools, such as the University of Texas, which has a bubble, Oliver said.

As of now, UVa teams often hold practices in The Cage facility next to University Hall when weather prevents practices outside, Murray said.

The $8 million price tag on the facility includes an estimated $3 million to create an endowment to maintain the facility at an estimated cost of $150,000 a year, Oliver said.

The money planned for the facility also includes funds to replace parking that is lost to the proposed bubble’s construction — per a university mandate.

Oliver said the life of the bubble is estimated at 10 years and that officials have talked about trying to raise money in the future to create a tens-of-millions-of-dollars permanent indoor facility.

The cost of replacing the bubble itself is estimated at $1 million, he said.