More than two years since plans for Oregon’s new indoor football practice facility were announced, there is finally a formal timeline for its construction.

The city of Eugene and University of Oregon negotiated for nearly a year and a half over a land swap that will facilitate UO rerouting Leo Harris Parkway in order to accommodate the new indoor football practice facility. That agreement was signed on Dec. 21, according to documents received by The Oregonian/OregonLive in response to a public records request.

The land swap calls for the university to trade 8.15 acres south of the Willamette River to the city for 5.55 acres of land across from the UO athletics complex, improvements to neighboring Alton Baker Park and parking areas along Leo Harris Parkway. The university will receive Privately Engineered Public Improvement (PEPI) permits from the city for various aspects of construction and rerouting of Leo Harris Parkway in the interim and once that work is complete, then the deeds will be exchanged at closing, which is to be no later than Sept. 30, 2025, according to the agreement.

While there is no start date listed for the construction of the new indoor facility, the agreement states construction of all university facilities is to be completed by Dec. 31, 2029.

“The project is progressing as we had hoped,” a UO athletics spokesperson said.

On June 6, UO’s board of trustees approved a lease agreement for portions of the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex and the property being acquired from the city to Phit Too, LLC, an entity of the University of Oregon Foundation, which will manage the construction of the new 170,000-square-foot facility and return it to the university as a gift upon completion. The project is donor-funded, but its cost is unclear.

Before the new indoor facility is built, construction of parking lots around the Eugene Science Center is to take place from now through June. The realignment of Leo Harris Parking is scheduled for the first six months of 2025, with construction of two outdoor practice fields adjacent to the new indoor facility also beginning January 2025.

The agreement calls for the university to begin construction on other agreed-upon city facilities, including parking near Cuthbert Amphitheater and the canoe canal bridge, by Sept. 30, 2025, and complete construction by Dec. 31, 2026, pending “future designs to be approved by the city.” Also, the sides are to agree on a community benefit project, which UO contributed $1 million towards, by Dec. 31, 2025.

Last month’s signing of the land exchange agreement between Eugene city Manager Sarah Medary and UO chief financial officer Jamie Moffitt, who served as interim university president last spring, was the most significant progress in a process that began when UO originally announced plans for the new facility on Oct. 19, 2021, with the goal of completing the facility prior to the 2024 football season. The Eugene City Council authorized Medary to negotiate details of the land swap with the university in July 2022, and authorized her to finalize an agreement in January 2023.