FARGO, N.D. – The North Dakota State University athletic department unveiled its latest massive facility upgrade on Friday, Oct. 14, holding a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Nodak Insurance Company Football Performance Complex on campus.
 
The entire cost of the $54 million building project has been privately funded, including a lead gift from Nodak Insurance Company, which was awarded naming rights.
 
A state-of-the-art training facility for the national champion NDSU football program, the complex includes capacity for the women's soccer, men's and women's golf, baseball, softball, and men's and women's track and field programs also affected by weather throughout the year.
 
The project's completed first phase included construction of the full-size indoor practice facility and the additional outdoor artificial turf practice field. The second phase will include a football locker room, team meeting room, athletic training and equipment spaces, and more.
 
"We're incredibly grateful for this gift – and for the contributions and generosity of all of you – for what it does for this facility, what it does for the institution, but ultimately what it is going to do for generations of student-athletes who are going to continue to excel moving forward because of these gifts," said NDSU president Dr. David Cook.
 
The facility will cover more than 117,000 square feet, including the practice field, operations building and storage warehouse. It will ultimately include an elevated gathering area for recruiting visits and guests, a weight room and fueling station, and a retractable netting system to accommodate multiple sports.
 
Seven overhead doors open from the indoor facility onto the outdoor practice field for ease of transition during team practices. LED lighting systems, scoreboards and play clocks are also installed on both fields.
 
"I think of the impact this facility will have on (our student-athletes') training, their development, and the overall ability to be successful at NDSU," said NDSU director of athletics, Matt Larsen. "I think of the impact this facility will have on the future of Bison Athletics. There are very few complexes in Division I athletics that will rival the Nodak Insurance Company Football Performance Complex."
 
"This building with Nodak Insurance Company's name on the side will be here beyond many of our lifetimes, providing coaches and athletes the year-round opportunity to excel at their craft," said Jim Alexander, president and CEO of Nodak Insurance Company. "It will be a source of pride for our board, our agents and employees, the community, and the state."
 
The complex was designed locally by Foss Architects and Interiors of Fargo, in collaboration with Crawford Architects of Kansas City.
 
In the past decade, NDSU has opened new competition venues on campus for basketball, wrestling, softball, indoor track & field, and outdoor track & field, in addition to significant facility upgrades for volleyball at the Bentson Bunker Fieldhouse and soccer at Dacotah Field. Other new training facilities include the Nodak Insurance Company Basketball Performance Center and the golf indoor short game facility, as well as the state-of-the-art strength & conditioning and sports medicine amenities in the Sanford Health Athletic Complex, which opened in 2016.
 
In all, the NDSU athletics facilities overhaul has totaled $110 million in projects over the past decade.