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CAMPBELL SPORTS CENTER
DIRECTIONS | BAKER ATHLETICS COMPLEX | BAKER ATHLETIC COMPLEX MAP (PDF) | COMMUNITY INFORMATION
QUICK FACTS
Official Name: Campbell Sports Center
Date Opened: June 3, 2012
Seating Capacity: N/A
Surface/Structure: Steel Frame and Concrete Plank
Location: Baker Athletics Complex, Inwood-Manhattan, New York City
Original Cost: $30 million
Structure Named For: William V. Campell '62CC
Address: 505 West 218th Street, New York, N.Y. 10034
Architects: Steven Holl Architects (Steven Holl and Chris McVoy)
THE FACILITY
The New York Times called Columbia’s Campbell Sports Center a building that shows both its "brains and its brawn," which makes perfect sense for a facility meant to support the University's athletic and academic excellence. The signature presence at 218th Street and Broadway sends a powerful message—to student-athletes, to coaches, to the campus community, to alumni, and to the sporting public—about Columbia's commitment to athletics.
The award-winning Campbell Sports Center is a five-story, 48,000-square-foot building, located on the corner of Broadway and 218th Street. It contains sports program offices, a state-of-the-art strength and conditioning center, an auditorium with seating for 175, hospitality suite, a study center, theater-style multimedia athletics classroom, student-athlete lounge, conference rooms, team meeting rooms, banquet and event facility with kitchen and administrative offices for Columbia’s outdoor sports programs. It was built with one purpose in mind: to meet the needs of Columbia’s student-athletes.
The venue provides the occupants and student-athletes a home base alongside the fields, courts and other facilities of the Baker Athletics Complex. Columbia’s outdoor sports programs are based here: football, baseball, softball, men’s and women’s tennis, men’s and women’s soccer, women’s lacrosse and field hockey.
Designed by renowned architect and Columbia faculty member, Steven Holl, a professor at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, who has taught at Columbia since 1981, the Campbell Sports Center has been lauded by numerous awards committees in New York and beyond.
The facility, which was officially dedicated in October 2012 at a Homecoming ceremony honoring Campbell, is an angular structure with an aluminum facade that literally reflects its surroundings. The center rises on slender legs and allows visitors to pass under it, creating in Holl's words, “a gateway to the Baker complex.” It is also a reflection, according to Chris McVoy, the Steven Holl Architects partner in charge of the project, of the kinds of diagrams that coaches draw. The stairways that climb down the front of the center accentuate the feeling of a building that is practically in motion. Inside, there's a strength-training room with eye-level views of the No. 1 subway line, lounges, conference rooms and a lecture hall with seats big enough for the burliest football players. Nearly every room has a spectacular view, not just of the entire Baker complex, but even downtown to the midtown Manhattan skyline.
It also makes sense that the sleek, geometric structure is named for Columbia's trustee chair and one Columbia’s most accomplished athletics alumni, William V. Campbell ‘62CC (1940-2016), whose career as a Columbia football player and coach, and later as a trusted mentor to leaders in the technology industry, embodies those two goals. Made possible through the generosity of numerous donors, the facility is named in honor of Campbell, who was the captain of Columbia's Ivy League champion football team in 1961. In the 1970s, Campbell served as the University's head football coach for six seasons before going on to hold key positions at Kodak and Apple, eventually becoming chairman of Intuit. Campbell is a revered figure in Silicon Valley, who has also maintained an active leadership role at his alma mater.
CAMPBELL SPORTS CENTER AMENITIES
- Five-story, 48,000-square foot building housing Columbia’s outdoor sports
- Administrative offices for Columbia’s football, baseball, softball, men’s and women’s tennis, men’s and women’s soccer, women’s lacrosse and field hockey programs
- State-of-the-art strength and conditioning center
- Ruzika Classroom and Lecture Hall: two-level auditorium with seating for 175
- Milstein Pavilion: banquet and event facility with kitchen
- Student-Athlete Study Lounge
- Student-Athlete Lounge
- Four theater-style conference rooms with the latest state-of-the-art video technology
- Three Hospitality Suites
