University of Miami opens residential village, football center on hold

The University of Miami’s Coral Gables campus is debuting a large residential project that opened this month, and continues to work on future capital projects including a theater arts building to open this fall while delaying its highly publicized football operations center.

The Centennial Village, said Jessica Brumley, vice president of facilities, operations, and planning, will house first-year students. Now completed, Phase 1 began in 2022 and opened its doors to students Aug. 12. Phase one includes two residential towers and a new dining hall on the first floor.

“We’re really excited, and as we were welcoming in our first-year students into Phase 1, we were also concurrently finishing the demolition of the towers for Phase 2,” said Ms. Brumley. “Thankfully the buildings are down, and we’re moving debris off the site for phase two, and then we’re going to start foundations in probably two or three weeks and begin that process of site work and moving dirt to start building the foundations for the building.”

The second phase of the Centennial Village consists of three buildings, said Ms. Brumley. It will also house first-year students. Amenities will include study rooms and multi-use areas, but the primary focus is the residential rooms. Phase 2 is expected to be finished in summer 2026.

Theater Arts at the university is also planned.

“Theater Arts … ties back into Phase 1 of Centennial Village,” said Ms. Brumley. “The Theater Arts program was previously housed in the two residential towers that were demolished to create Centennial Village Phase 1…. When we demolished them, we had to find a new home for the theater arts program. We are currently in the process of finalizing construction for a separate Theater Arts facility, which will have classrooms and also performance spaces as well, and administrative offices. It’s under construction, and we’re slated to finish in November … of this year.”

Additionally, the Knight Center for Music Innovation opened in the fall of 2023.

The center is slightly adjacent to the residential halls that were just completed in the first phase of the Centennial Village, said Ms. Brumley. The Knight Center faces Lake Osceola in the center of the campus and is dedicated to the university’s Frost School of Music. It is primarily used as a performance space.

“There are two areas within the facility for performances,” said Ms. Brumley. “One is more kind of like a black box type of venue where it can be reconfigured, and the other one is like a traditional performance auditorium space that faces the lake. In addition, it does have the capability, from a technological standpoint, to be able to wall cast performances on the side of one of the walls … so that we can potentially host events, concerts, where individuals are not only watching the performance from the inside, but we’ve also opened it up to the exterior and the community for individuals to enjoy it from the outside as well.”

A temporary certificate of occupancy was obtained, said Ms. Brumley, so the school is allowed to occupy and utilize the space. The fourth and fifth floors are built out and the final touches are being put in as well as equipment in furniture. It will be used as lab spaces, as well as include associated office space with the labs.

Other projects are planned as current needs are being addressed.

“We went through the process of re-identifying needs within the institution,” said Ms. Brumley, “and had done a fair amount of due diligence and design, and made a determination for the institution. Instead of constructing the football ops facility [Football Operations Center] at this point, we are going to first look at expanding our indoor practice field and adding a weight room there, and starting that as phase one of that project, with the football operations facility potentially having that some point in the future.”