Posted (3/3/09) 5:00pm

Today, the Oklahoma City City Council moves into the final stages of getting ready to improve the Ford Center.  They also got the first look at big plans for the Oklahoma City Thunder's Practice Facility.  The City Council took a look at the preliminary designs of the Ford Center, so they can get ready for bids to do the work.  But another big part of keeping the Thunder in Oklahoma City is the permanent practice facility, which is finally taking shape.

While the Thunder are 3/4 of the way through their first NBA season at the Ford Center, Oklahoma City is still a $100 million renovation from completing the big league city transition.

Tom Anderson, the City of Oklahoma City Exec Manager of Special Projects said, "Anytime you renovate a facility, it's a complex process.  We had the concept there, now it was a matter of looking at what you could actually do with this facility and what concepts actually work."

Projects planned for the summer will include redoing the concourse, adding loge boxes, and improving the lower level seating to fit each event.  Tim Linville with the Ford Center says the seating improvement could allow them to do multiple events in a single day.

Tim Linville, the Director of Sales & Marketing for the Ford Center said, "It automatically will switch from one configuration to the next, which will save us some significant man hours, and make it a lot easier to do one switch over from one sport to another."

Today, the City Council was the first to see the designs of the practice facility, which will include 2 courts, and state-of-the-art film and therapy rooms.

Meg Salyer, the OKC Councilperson for Ward 6 said, "The architectural renderings look really exciting.  It was laid out in an extremely impressive way, and I think it's something everyone's going to be really proud of."

"I think the quality and expectations of the voters that supported this initiative are going to be extremely pleased with the end product," Anderson explained.

Now that Phase 1 is wrapping up, Phase 2 can go "full court".

"We're putting another $100 million into it to really make it the world class venue that Oklahoma City deserves," Linville added.

"Turn the keys over and play ball," Anderson concluded.

At the Ford Center, once the Thunder are done for the season and the Blazers have finished the playoffs, they'll shut down the whole building for about 5 months to start these big time renovations this summer.  The practice facility, which is going to be located on Britton Road and the Broadway Extension, will break ground late this summer and should be completed in the summer of 2010.