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On the floor of the yet-unfinished women's basketball locker room, there are a few orange chips of plastic scattered on the concrete.
Deputy athletic director Kyle Brennan tapped at the chips with his toe, explaining they were the remnants of a wall mounting that Utah athletics had commissioned and a construction worker had placed in position. But when athletics officials saw it wasn't candy red — as the school had ordered — it came down.
"As long as we're doing this project," Brennan said, "We'd better get it right."
Utah athletics finds itself in several major construction projects nearing completion this summer, a reflection of its rising ambitions as a department. While the Utes are coming off probably their best year in the Pac-12, they believe more than $41 million worth of facility improvements wrapping up by September will vault them even further in their competitive conference.
At least one of the major projects, the Sorensen Legacy Foundation High Performance Center, is already functional. Utah's baseball, soccer, basketball and other sports have been working out there for nearly a month.
On Friday, strength coach Jon Webster glowed as he explained how Utah's pneumatic resistance machines work. The upstairs weight room also has new weight racks, cycles, treadmills, yoga balls and other equipment bought with a $300,000 budget. It also has more floor space, allowing multiple teams to work out at once in some instances.
"The old room in the HPER [health physical education and recreation building] got the job done, but there's really no comparison," Webster said. "This is the best we could ask for."
The weight room sits above a new training room, with a U-shape hot-and-cold tub and training tables. There's nifty new-age rehab equipment, including three anti-gravity treadmills that can reduce joint pressure on an injured limb while allowing the athlete to sneak in cardio early in the recovery process.
Down an underground corridor is a pathway to the Jon and Karen Huntsman Basketball Center. Completion has been pushed back a month to September after officials decided to replace one of the planned solid walls with glass. The wood that will be the women's gym floor is resting in stacks, adjusting to the humidity and temperature of the room.
In the men's gym just a few steps away, the maple floor is going down — the smell of wood is thick throughout the area. Stone facades are going up in the locker rooms and offices. The elevator has Utah mountains already branded into the doors.
In the next few months, construction crews will polish the insides of the building and bring in the equipment and furniture to make it feel more like home for Utah's basketball programs. Brennan anticipated the men's gym will be ready by August, and both teams will share it until the women's gym is complete.
Closer to opening is the outdoor tennis courts, rising up just west of the Eccles indoor tennis facility.There are six courts on each side of a shaded seating area for fans. Most of the remaining details to be added are small — logos on the courts, benches and other polishing features. The Utes plan to open the $2.5 million courts to camps next week, and the public will be able to reserve time to play soon after.
At Rice Eccles Stadium, a $3.2 million project to build new restrooms on the north concourse has been underway for a few weeks. By August, the Utes should have 100 new fixtures to ease long lines during games.
"It's not the sexiest project," stadium director Mark Burk said. "Our No. 1 complaint was wait times. This should help a lot."
Stadium officials are still in the design phase for a video board to be installed in 2016, which Burk estimated should increase fourfold the size of the current monitor. They are also examining options for renovating the aging southern end zone building, which likely is a few years away.
Twitter: @kylegoon —
Utah athletics construction projects
• $36 million Jon and Karen Huntsman Basketball Center/Sorenson Legacy High Performance Center: basketball center completion in September, performance center is functional
• $2.5 million outdoor tennis courts: completion this month
• $3.2 million Rice-Eccles Stadium restroom renovation: completion in August