St. David’s Performance Center

The St. David’s Performance Center is the first Major League Soccer (MLS) facility to create a larger mixed-use development that features office buildings, entertainment, hospitality, public gathering places, and recreation areas. The initial 30,000-square-foot facility includes individual spaces for each team, and the site is designed to accommodate future expansion.

It sits on a 23-acre site with four and a half professional outdoor soccer fields. It houses soccer operation and technical staff for both teams and provides classrooms, dining areas, a player lounge, an auditorium, locker rooms, two hydrotherapy pools, a sports performance area, and a weight room. 

Walter P Moore worked with the architect to develop a cost-effective but architecturally interesting structure. The facility is composed of prefabricated metal buildings, however, instead of using a typical shape, we developed a layout that combined five buildings which were individually rotated to achieve the architect’s vision. 

Tying these buildings together created a single roof structure, which was more cost-effective than leaving them as five separate buildings. Plus, a non-traditional cladding solution allowed the structural elements to be expressed on both the interior and exterior of the facility.

Even though this was a fairly small project, Walter P Moore delivered it out of two offices, which was more efficient during the 2020 COVID pandemic. Our Los Angeles office ran the project due to their proximity to the architect’s office, but we also used our Austin team throughout design and construction due to their experience with local conditions. 

This became particularly valuable during construction as travel restrictions were in place throughout the entire phase. Since our Austin team had already been fully engaged in the project, they were able to complete all of the necessary site visits without missing a beat.