A view of the front of FSU’s new football building from late June. (Bob Ferrante)
A long-term goal of coach Mike Norvell and Florida State administrators, the football operations building has gradually taken shape and is on track to be wrapped up by the Seminoles’ first bye week in mid-September.
“When you see it, it's going to be the finest facility out there,” FSU athletics director Michael Alford told the Osceola. “Because it is just dedicated to the student-athlete.”
The football building might be dedicated to football athletes, but the impacts will be far reaching. FSU’s massive investment, a price tag of $150 million , gives the football players what they need on the day to day. It’s a building that will feature meeting rooms, a weight room as well as therapy pools — considerably more space to allocate 105 players plus coaches and staff than what they had inside the Moore Athletic Center.
“What you're going to see now is those same things on a grander scale to where now you can accommodate more guys, you can accommodate the efficiency of it,” strength and conditioning coach Josh Storms said in the spring.
There will be more efficiency with how players, coaches and staff spend their time.
“What each department gets is a facility that's set up very efficient to be able to operate in the way that you like to operate,” Storms said. “With the weight room being connected to the back of the indoor, a very simple transition time from the weight room out onto the field as opposed to going back and forth like we do now, provides us a little bit of flexibility to implement some things in training that weren't able to be done as efficiently as we like to in the past.
“So now you're saving time so you can get more stuff done. Even just (the) locker room being that close to the playing surface as well. You're cutting down on a lot of the back and forth, a lot of transition.”
A positive impact on recruiting
FSU’s facility has had a positive impact on players, who are looking forward to spending their days inside this fall. But recruits have also been able to take notice during their visits this spring and summer.
Alford said he feels the building has had a “major impact” on FSU’s football recruiting, which has enjoyed a stellar run in the last few weeks. FSU now has a top-15 class in On’3s and 247Sports’ 2026 team rankings, which is impressive given the Seminoles’ struggles in 2024. If they can take a step forward this fall, the on-field improvement plus the upgraded facility show the team is moving in the right direction and with a significant investment backing up the program.
With the looming House-NCAA settlement, Alford said he felt a number of schools nationally opted not to spend on facilities the last few years. FSU administrators chose to be ambitious with their plans.
“Looking ahead, three years ago, when we started this, knowing the House (vs. NCAA) settlement was coming, we thought it was very important for us to get this project going,” Alford said. “So that when we came with the House settlement, that we were prepared for it. You saw a lot of schools across the country not invest into facilities during that timeframe. And to the President's credit, the Board of Trustees’ credit, our athletic department's credit, we said, ‘Now's the time to invest.’
“And so when we came out of it, we had this built. Because we were one of the lowest per square footage for football in the ACC. We had the least amount of square footage dedicated to football. We needed to get our facilities up to par with our peers. And this has really made a difference in recruiting.”
The football building won’t have everything, but that’s by design. Alford said the training table will stay at Moore with all of FSU’s athletes. And the academic support staff will also stay inside Moore.
“We're able to utilize space just to dedicate for them to grow their craft,” Alford said, noting he wants the football players to remain connected to athletes in all men’s and women’s sports teams.
Benefits for Olympics sports athletes
As the football coaches, staff and players make the short move from Moore to their building, the benefits of opened-up space will be realized quickly. The main benefactor will be FSU’s Olympics sports athletes, who will have more openings in the mornings, afternoons and evenings in the weight room.
While the Basketball Training Center features a weight room for the men and women, and programs like baseball have a small weight room, Alford said it’s often normal for Olympics sports programs to schedule 5 a.m. workouts inside Moore’s weight room just because that’s the window when it’s available.
“It is going to allow our other sports to utilize the Moore, the training center, the weight room,” Alford said. “And when we repurposed the weight room that needed it so badly three years ago, because the weights were crumbling and it just hadn't been touched. We did it with Olympic sports in mind. We got with our Olympic strength coach and said, ‘Look, this is going to be an Olympic strength weight room in the future. What equipment do you need?’ So it was all done with a purpose for the transition of football.”
The training room time will also open up at Moore, giving additional opportunities for athletes to get treatment.
With more than 500 athletes on campus and juggling classes as well as schedules for practice, lifting and training with their sports, the added space in the football only building can open up times for Olympics sports athletes to improve their day-to-day schedules.
“Getting into the training room to see our trainers, it's going to free up times, which also allows them to also have better class schedules,” Alford said. “And that's something that really excites me, because it gives them more opportunities to schedule classes at different times, knowing they have a better lift schedule in the weight room.
“So it's going to free up not only class time, but weight room time, training room time. And that's something the impact of that facility is going to be felt through all of our programs.”
