Regents Approve $67.5 Million Athletics Facilities Plan: What UNO’s New Training Facility Means for Maverick Fans

Photo courtesy of Omaha Athletics

On Friday, Dec. 5, the University of Nebraska System Board of Regents signed off on a massive, privately funded facilities plan that has the potential to reshape Omaha Athletics.

The impact is significant:

• $55 million for a new Omaha Athletics Training Facility next to Baxter Arena
• $12.5 million for a baseball and softball clubhouse at Maverick Park

All $67.5 million is privately funded, a significant investment in UNO’s student-athletes and the future of Maverick Athletics.

For fans, it boils down to this: Baxter is getting an incredible facility next door, Maverick Park is getting its finishing piece, and UNO is putting real money behind its goal of hanging with the big names in Division I.

A Program on the Rise Finally Gets the Facilities to Match

The last few years have been busy, in a good way, for Omaha Athletics.

According to UNO, in just the past four seasons, Maverick teams have:

• Played in 17 conference championship games
• Won 11 conference titles
• Made 8 NCAA Tournament appearances

That includes:

• Men’s Basketball – first-ever conference titles and a March Madness appearance in 2025
• Softball – three straight Summit League titles and three straight NCAA trips

That kind of success changes expectations. It also exposes where you’re falling behind your peers. For UNO, a big gap has been facilities.

Sapp Fieldhouse has been the workhorse of Omaha Athletics since 1949. It’s hosted just about everything over the years: practices, games, graduations, community events. But for a modern Division I department with 17 sports and roughly 350 student-athletes, the building is stretched past what it was ever designed to do.

Multiple teams practice at the same time, noise bounces everywhere, and court sports don’t get consistent, dedicated training blocks. Space for academic support, sports medicine, strength and conditioning, and mental health is carved out wherever it fits.

The new projects are UNO’s answer to that problem: build something that fits where the program is now — and where it wants to go.

Baxter’s New Best Friend: The Omaha Athletics Training Facility

The centerpiece of the plan is the Omaha Athletics Training Facility, a 75,000+ square-foot building that will sit just east of Baxter Arena, linked by an elevated skywalk across 64th Street.

Right now, Baxter does everything — hockey, basketball, volleyball, events — which means:

• Constant conversions from ice to hardwood and back
• Tight practice windows
• Limited flexibility for non-game events

The new facility solves a lot of that.

What’s inside?

The Training Facility is designed as the daily home base for several programs and the central “engine room” for Omaha Athletics. Big-picture, it will include:

• Two full practice courts, with one that can flex into a 1,300-seat competition court
• Locker rooms and lounges for men’s basketball, women’s basketball, and volleyball
• A large weight room and integrated sports performance spaces
• Sports medicine, hydrotherapy, mental health, and sports nutrition areas
• Academic support and life-skills spaces (tutoring, study rooms, career readiness)
• Offices for coaches, administrators, and support staff
• Event-capable design with direct connection to Baxter via skywalk

It’s essentially taking the scattered, cramped pieces of Sapp Fieldhouse and spreading them out in a building designed from day one for a modern Division I athletic department.

Why it matters on a day-to-day level

For student-athletes, the change is huge:

• No more cramming multiple teams onto one floor separated by curtains.
• Consistent practice times on dedicated courts.
• Strength training, rehab, mental health support, and academics are all under one roof.
• The skywalk to Baxter means players can move between the arena and training spaces without battling weather or traffic.

For coaches, it gives them:

• Modern practice setups that are easier to film and analyze
• Better efficiency for scheduling, especially for teams juggling tough academic loads
• A facility they can proudly show off on recruiting visits

And for UNO as an institution, it provides the kind of integrated training hub you see at schools they’re trying to recruit against — not just summit-level peers, but bigger “power” programs too. 

What This Means for Baxter Arena

The Training Facility doesn’t just help athletes. It also frees up Baxter to be more of what it was meant to be: a premier competition and event venue.

Right now, Baxter has to constantly flip from:

Hockey ice
To basketball court
To volleyball setup
To concerts, shows, and special events

Every change takes time and money. It also limits when non-athletic events can be held.

With dedicated practice courts next door, fewer practices will need to happen on the main floor at Baxter. That means:

• Fewer conversions = less wear, lower costs
• More open dates and times for events, concerts, and rentals
• Better scheduling for all sports

The skywalk is important. It allows UNO to ticket and manage events where part of the action or fan experience happens in the Training Facility, part in Baxter, and fans move between the two without going outside or crossing streets. It also makes big tournaments, youth events, and community programming easier to host.

Finishing the Picture at Maverick Park: The Baseball & Softball Clubhouse

The second major piece of the plan lives a short walk from Baxter at Maverick Park — home to Tal Anderson Field (baseball) and Connie Claussen Field (softball).

Those fields are already among the nicer setups in the Summit League. What they don’t yet have is a true “home base” building for Omaha Baseball and Softball.

The new Baseball and Softball Clubhouse fixes that. Built into the hillside overlooking both fields, the two-story, 19,000+ square-foot building will bring the programs under one roof for the first time.

Key elements will include:

• Sport-specific locker rooms and team lounges
• Athletic training and sports medicine space
• Meeting rooms and coaches’ offices
• Year-round indoor cages for pitching and hitting
• Equipment storage and operations space just steps from both fields

For Omaha Softball and Baseball, this is a massive quality-of-life upgrade. Instead of piecing together space in older facilities and trucking gear back and forth, it offers:

• One place to dress, meet, rehab, and hang out
• Seamless movement from clubhouse to field
• A facility that tells recruits, “We’re serious about this.”

A Holistic Approach to the Student-Athlete Experience

One of the consistent themes in the announcement is “holistic student-athlete development.” In this case, it shows up in very concrete ways.

The Training Facility, especially, is designed around four big pillars:

• Performance – weight room, courts, ice support, sports science, technology
• Health & Wellness – sports medicine, hydrotherapy, mental health, nutrition
• Academics – tutoring rooms, quiet study spaces, life-skills & career development
• Community & Connection – event spaces, community-use areas, and better integration with campus

UNO’s strategic plan leans hard into community engagement and being a metropolitan university that connects with the city around it. These projects are built to support that: spaces that can host public events, youth camps, clinics, and partnerships with groups like Biomechanics and Health & Kinesiology.

It’s about winning more games. But it’s also about giving student-athletes the support system they need to handle everything that comes with college sports in 2025 and beyond.

100% Privately Funded: Philanthropy and the Hawks Legacy

One thing that is important in this time of funding challenges: no state funds are being used for these projects. The full $67.5 million comes from private donations and philanthropic support.

That fits a pattern we’ve seen across the University of Nebraska system, where the Hawks family in particular has played a huge role in major athletics and academic facilities — from Hawks Field at Haymarket Park in Lincoln to Hawks Hall for UNL’s College of Business, and now this next phase of Omaha’s athletics campus.

In the official release, UNO leaders pointed directly to that kind of philanthropic leadership:

President Jeffrey Gold called the projects “powered by visionary philanthropic leadership” and “a program on the rise” finally getting facilities that match its trajectory.

Chancellor Joanne Li said the projects reflect the “Maverick mindset” and the spirit of service exemplified by Howard Hawks, helping put UNO alongside national powerhouses.

Athletic Director Adrian Dowell framed this as a turning point — the moment people will look back on as when Omaha became a true national competitive force.

For fans, the takeaway is pretty simple: people with the ability to make big things happen believe in where Omaha Athletics is headed, strongly enough to write very big checks to get it there.

Timelines: When Will We See It?

Here’s the current timeline from UNO and the project documents:

• 2026 – Initial construction is scheduled to begin for both projects
• 2027 – Target occupancy for the Baseball & Softball Clubhouse at Maverick Park
• 2028 – Target occupancy for the Omaha Athletics Training Facility next to Baxter

Construction timelines can shift (weather, supply chains, etc.), but the goal is clear: within the next 3-4 years, the daily life of Omaha student-athletes — and the overall footprint of the athletics campus — will look very different.

What This Means for Fans

A few things to look forward to:

• Better teams, better prepared.

Facilities don’t score goals or hit threes, but they do affect recruiting, recovery, and development. Having practice space, performance facilities, and support services that match (or beat) your peers matters.

• A stronger Baxter game-day experience.

Less chaos behind the scenes means more flexibility in how events are staged, scheduled, and supported. The Training Facility/skywalk combo should give UNO new ways to host tournaments, youth events, and special game-day experiences.

• Maverick Park as a true “athletics corridor.”

With the clubhouse overlooking both fields, baseball and softball finally get the complete home they’ve earned. That should improve crowd experience, recruiting, and long-term program stability.

• More reasons for recruits to say “yes” to Omaha.

UNO already has a lot going for it: a great city, Baxter, strong coaching staffs, real momentum. These facilities give coaches a powerful answer when a recruit asks, “Where will I train, study, and hang out every day?”

The Bottom Line

This isn’t just new buildings. It’s a statement about where UNO believes Maverick Athletics belongs in the national conversation:

• A new training facility connected to Baxter that consolidates performance, wellness, and academics.
• A clubhouse at Maverick Park that gives baseball and softball a true home.
• 100% private funding, signaling major donor confidence.
• A clear bet that Omaha can sustain — and grow — the success it’s enjoyed over the last four years.

If you’ve followed Omaha Athletics for any length of time, you know how much has already changed in the last decade: Baxter Arena, Maverick Park, big postseason moments, and breakthrough seasons.

Back in the early 2000s, an on-campus arena was only a dream for people posting on the MavPuck message board. When Baxter opened on October. 23, 2015, it was just the beginning.

The next phase is about making sure Omaha Athletics facilities continue to evolve and grow with the competitive demands of the Summit League and the National Collegiate Hockey Conference.

For Maverick fans, it’s something to be excited about.