Blinn College to break ground in November on $43 million sports complex
The short version
- Blinn College will start construction in November on an estimated $43 million sports complex in Brenham, Texas, with completion targeted for summer 2028.
- The project includes a 28,555-square-foot fieldhouse, turf fields for football, soccer and softball, an eight-lane track and about 250 parking spaces.
- Blinn's board of trustees approved the plan in a 5-2 vote on Sept. 15; Bartlett Cocke General Contractors will build and Pfluger Architects will design.
- Soccer and softball teams that play at Hohlt Park will get on-campus competitive fields; football and track will leave the former Spencer Stadium site.
- Blinn programs have won more than 50 national championships since 1986.
The junior college in Brenham, Texas, plans a 28,555-square-foot fieldhouse, new turf fields for football, soccer and softball, and an eight-lane track by summer 2028.
Blinn College has filed plans for a new sports complex at its campus in Brenham, Texas, a project estimated at $43 million. The junior college registered the undertaking, formally titled the Blinn College Sports Complex, with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation earlier this week. The filing lays out a facility intended to bring several Blinn teams back to the Brenham campus.
A 28,555-square-foot fieldhouse serves as the anchor. The building is slated to hold offices, locker rooms, training space and storage for the athletic department. Site work around it will add roughly 250 parking spaces along with other infrastructure improvements.
Outdoors, the plan calls for a football practice field in synthetic turf and separate competition-grade turf fields for soccer and softball. An intramural field that can double as supplemental practice space, another football practice field and an eight-lane track complete the layout.
The project addresses a scattered athletic footprint. Blinn's football and track and field athletes currently train on open land where Spencer Stadium, the Buccaneers' original home venue, once stood. The soccer and softball teams play their games at Hohlt Park in Brenham, which keeps part of the department's schedule away from campus.
Once the work is done, those programs would have new homes for both practice and competition. Football players and track athletes would move off the open lot onto dedicated surfaces, and spectators who currently head to Hohlt Park for soccer and softball would find those teams competing on campus. The change would place more of the department's training and competition activity in a single location.
Blinn presents the investment as more than an athletics upgrade. On its website, the school calls the complex part of broader spending on the Brenham campus and says it should benefit student-athletes and the wider student body while supporting recruiting, retention and campus life.
The proposal cleared a divided board. Blinn's trustees voted 5-2 on Sept. 15 to move ahead after extensive discussion. Bartlett Cocke General Contractors, a Texas company, will build the complex, and Pfluger Architects will handle design, with construction set to start in November and completion targeted for summer 2028.
The spending matches a program with few peers in the state. Blinn teams have captured more than 50 national championships since 1986, across sports including football, baseball, volleyball and cheerleading, and the school has framed the new venue as part of its effort to keep that run of success going.
The college's athlete pipeline has reached the highest levels of its sports. Blinn notes that many of its athletes have gone on to major Division I programs and professional sports. Alumni include NFL standout Cam Newton, World Series winner Don Baylor, NBA champion Chris "Birdman" Anderson and James Beckford, who earned silver in the Olympic long jump in 2004.
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