Hawks and Emory Healthcare break ground on Emory Sports Medicine Complex

The Atlanta Hawks and Emory Healthcare held a ground breaking ceremony on Friday on the Emory Sports Medicine Complex. The 90,000 foot complex will integrate four state-of-the-art facilities including the Hawks’ new practice courts and training facility.

The four operations will be:

• Emory Healthcare Courts
• Emory Sports Medicine Center
• Emory Physical Therapy
• Peak Performance Project

Emory Healthcare Courts will serve as the official practice and training facility for the Atlanta Hawks. The facility will feature two full-length basketball courts, a film room, and a fully-dedicated recovery area including cryotherapy, sensory deprivation tanks and in-ground hydrotherapy. The Hawks basketball operations team will be housed in the facility full-time.

“As we reach the one-year mark this week since our ownership group bought the Atlanta Hawks, we are thrilled to be breaking ground on this truly impressive, state-of-the-art practice facility, training center and sports medicine complex with our world-class partners at Emory,” Principal Owner Tony Ressler said. “Emory Healthcare Courts will accomplish one of our top priorities of improving facilities that are integral in developing a winning team, attracting and retaining top player talent, and being a top basketball franchise. In partnering with Emory Healthcare, we are proud to support a local institution that will be responsible for providing among the most advanced sports medicine care to both our players and the greater Atlanta community.”

This training facility is a huge deal for the Hawks as a franchise. This will replace the cramped training area they currently utilize at Philips Arena and put them in a competitive place with teams around the league. Not only will this facility benefit Atlanta’s current players and coaching staff, they will soon be able to showcase it to the rest of the league and to free agents which simply wasn’t possible before.

Also housed in the complex will be Emory’s Sports Medicine center and Physical Therapy departments. Emory will move its entire sports medicine department to the new facility which will give the Hawks first hand access Emory’s world-class physicians. The center will include the most advanced technology in preventive and rehabilitative equipment. The center will house 3 Tesla MRI scanner, diagnostic imaging technology, recovery technology, 3-D motion capture analysis, and blood/sweat testing and analysis. Emory doctors will see patients at the facility and will hold events to engage the local community.

Another interesting addition to the facility is the Peak Performance Project which is commonly referred to P3. The organization is a world-wide leader in applied sports science based in Santa Barbara, California. The Atlanta branch will be P3’s first location outside of Santa Barbara and will serve as its East Coast headquarters.

The complex is scheduled to be completed prior to the 2017-18 season.

With construction for the training facility now underway, Hawks principal owner Tony Ressler told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Chris Vivlamore that the focus would now shift to renovations at Philips Arena.