After 12 years in the making, the University of Vermont’s Archie Post Athletic Complex, which is home to Virtue Field and Moulton Winder Field, is finally complete. The university officially dedicated the new Pizzagalli Support Building at Virtue Field in a ceremony on Friday, April 17.
The Pizzagalli Support Building will be the game day home for both Vermont lacrosse and soccer teams as well as Vermont’s field hockey, track and field and cross country teams.
“It’s an exciting day and fun to celebrate a new facility that is going to have a major impact,” Vermont Athletic Director Jeff Schulman said. “This complex probably gets 50,000 visitors that come through here, so to have proper concessions and restrooms and facilities that are fitting for a first-class college athletic venue (is important).”
The Pizzagalli Support Center features a total of four locker room spaces for home and visiting teams with showers and bathrooms. (There are built-in dividers to create four team spaces.) The building also includes a training/first aid room, a small locker room with bathrooms for officials and a built-in concessions stand and bathrooms for fans. It also has both air conditioning and heating.
“On behalf of all the athletes, I think this brings our teams closer together,” Vermont men’s soccer senior Karl Daly said. “It creates more of a fortress at Virtue Field than ever before. We’ll continue to defend the North.”
According to Vermont’s press release Vermont Green and high school teams will be able to use the Pizzagalli Support Center.
Vermont broke ground on the $5 million project in June 2025, and the teams began using the facility a few weeks ago in a soft launch. Remo and Donna Pizzagalli provided the $2 million necessary to get the project to the finish line in the fall of 2024, which coincided with Vermont men’s soccer winning the National Championship.
Now, the athletes won’t have to use Portalets behind the far side of Virtue Field or have to run back into Patrick Gym to their designated locker rooms.
“We made the best of it, but it was far from ideal,” Schulman said.
Those memories can now be part of the distant past for fans, athletes and coaching staff alike.
Schulman and the university hope the completion of the Pizzagalli Support Building will lead to some positive news on UVM Tarrant Center, which broke ground in 2019. The project got halted during the COVID-19 pandemic and has yet to resume.
Contact Judith Altneu at JAltneu@usatodayco.com. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter: @Judith_Altneu.
This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Vermont Athletics open Pizzagalli Support Center to teams
