Outer view of one of the buildings in the St. David's Performance Center development in Austin, Texas.

St. David’s Performance Center

Building the first MLS mixed-use development using cross-country expertise.

Project Facts

Location Austin, Texas
Owner Austin Training Company
Size 30,000 SF
Cost $26 Million
Status Completed 2021

Overview

Saint David’s Performance Center is the training home for the Austin Football Club (FC) first team and academy team. The Performance Center is the result of a partnership between Austin FC and St. David’s Health Care, which provides Austin FC players with medical expertise, high-performance training, nutrition, and physiotherapy.

Outdoor gathering area at the St David's Performance Center facility.

Front desk and lobby at the St. David's Performance Center in Austin, Texas.

Dining area in the St. David's Performance Center facility.

Indoor/Outdoor gym and soccer field at the St. David's Performance Center.

Health center at the St. David's Performance Center.

1 / 1

About the project

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.