Jerry Carino

@njhoopshaven

PISCATAWAY — Two years ago this month, Rutgers announced the hiring of architectural firm Michael Graves & Associates to lead a soup-to-nuts overhaul of the Louis Brown Athletic Center.

Sixteen months ago, then-athletics director Tim Pernetti unveiled details of the renovation, including an entrance plaza, reconfigured seating and a much-needed practice facility for men’s and women’s basketball.

Now, under Julie Hermann, the plan is moving in a new direction.

“We’ve spent the past 10 months developing a concept that we think is the most sustainable and most effective plan going forward,” Hermann said Tuesday. “It has to be approved by all university constituents.”

Although Hermann declined to go public with details because things are still at the conceptual stage, Gannett New Jersey spoke with several people familiar with her vision, which she has shared with the Rutgers Court Club and other donors.

The bulk of Pernetti’s plan has been scrapped, although its first stage — a state-of-the-art scoreboard and upgraded sound system — was implemented in September. And the much-needed amenity of air conditioning has been approved and should be installed by the summer of 2015.

The Pernetti-commissioned plaza rendering remains displayed on Michael Graves & Associates’ website, but multiple sources told Gannett New Jersey that Rutgers likely will use a different architect once it breaks ground on the athletics facilities project.

“I can’t comment on the RAC in particular,” senior vice president Joseph Furey said. “Rutgers is still a client of ours. We do other work for them.”

One concept that seems be gaining traction, according to those familiar with the evolving plan, is an “athlete’s village” near High Point Solutions Stadium. A new headquarters would be built for football, which would vacate the Hale Center for use by other sports. A basketball practice facility would be part of the village.

The current situation for men’s hoops — practicing daily on their game floor, which is used by other programs and for high school events — is virtually unheard of at the major-conference level.

“They need something to call their own,” Court Club president Brian Kelley said. “They need something high-end, something they can take pride in. If it happens to be on Busch campus that’s fine, but the need is so urgent, it can’t be overstated.”

Kelley said the Athlete’s Glen, which is an area between the Yellow Lot and the stadium, was noted as a potential site for the village.

“The eventual idea could be to move all the offices out of the RAC, and turn where they are now into boxes,” said Kelley, who travels to just about every Rutgers road game and has seen scores of college arenas. “A lot of the venues we’ve seen over the years have seats with a sky-box feel. There isn’t a place to put a luxury box in the RAC in the main seating area. This may be the answer to that problem. It may be the only way to have upscale seating in the place.”

The key questions, of course, are how much it would cost and how long it would take to become reality. Pernetti targeted completion sometime during 2015. He also raised $15 million, mostly in pledges, for the project before his ouster four months after his plan was publicized. Much of that money evaporated, and most of what remained went toward phrase one of the scoreboard, sound system and Hermann-ordered lighting upgrades.

Any project that includes a practice facility could cost upwards of $60 million. Fundraising will be central because Rutgers athletics needed nearly $47 million in subsidies from the university’s allocations fund to make up for its budget shortfall. Although the department will start cashing Big Ten checks soon, it will take six years before the Scarlet Knights are fully vested in sharing the league’s revenue.

The hiring of two alums, former All-America tight end Marco Battaglia and Andy Sisti, as directors of development/major gifts should help get the fundraising wheels turning again.

“It’s not all going to happen within a year or two, funding-wise,” Kelley said. “But the idea is there’s no better time to raise money. Everyone is excited going into this (Big Ten) conference and you haven’t won or lost a game yet. They’re hoping they can get legitimate backing from people who have the ability to help that maybe haven’t so far — people in high-reaching places, CEOs, people in a position to do more.”

It figures to take some time before Hermann’s vision comes to fruition. For now, the air conditioning is welcome news because recruiting visits, camps and workouts over the summer become an ordeal when the temperature peaks.

Like the new scoreboard, it’s a step toward the rest of the pack.

“We are light years behind even programs like South Florida,” Kelley said. “They have sparkling new facilities that are monuments to their effort. Unfortunately we haven’t been able to get to the point where we value that for basketball. That’s a reason our program has lagged for a number of years.”

Staff writer Keith Sargeant contributed to this story.

Staff writer Jerry Carino: jcarino@gannett.com​