National Collegiate Athletic Association - Headquarters

Headquarters

The modern era of the NCAA began in July 1952 when its executive director, Kansas City, Missouri native Walter Byers, moved the organization's headquarters from the LaSalle Hotel in Chicago (where its offices were shared by the headquarters of the Big Ten Conference) to the Fairmount Building at 101 West 11th Street in Downtown Kansas City. The move was intended to separate the NCAA from direct influence of any individual conference and to keep it centrally located.

The Fairmount was a block from Municipal Auditorium which had hosted Final Four games in 1940, 1941 and 1942.

After Byers moved to Kansas City, the championships would be held in Municipal in 1953, 1954, 1955, 1957, 1961, 1964.

The Fairmount office consisted of three rooms with no air conditioning. Byers' staff consisted of four people (an assistant, two secretaries and a bookkeeper).

In 1964 it moved three blocks away to offices in the Midland Theatre.

In 1973 it moved to 6299 Nall at Shawnee Mission Parkway in suburban Mission, Kansas in a $1.2 million building on 3.4 acres (14,000 m2).

In 1989 it moved six miles (10 km) further south into the suburbs to 6201 College Boulevard in Overland Park, Kansas. The new building was on 11.35 acres (45,900 m2) and had 130,000 square feet (12,000 m2) of space.

The NCAA was dissatisfied with its Johnson County, Kansas suburban location noting that its location on the south edges of the Kansas City suburbs was more than 40 minutes from Kansas City International Airport. They also noted that the suburban location was not drawing visitors to its new visitors' centre.

In 1997 it asked for bids for a new headquarters.

Various cities competed for a new headquarters with the two finalists being Kansas City and Indianapolis.

Kansas City proposed to relocate the NCAA back downtown near the Crown Center complex and would locate the visitors' centre in Union Station (Kansas City). However Kansas City's main sports venue Kemper Arena was nearly 30 years old.

Indianapolis argued that it was in fact more central than Kansas City in that two thirds of the members are east of the Mississippi River.

Further the 50,000-seat RCA Dome far eclipsed the 17,000-seat Kemper.

In 1999 the NCAA moved its 300 member staff to its new headquarters in the White River State Park in a four-story, 140,000-square-foot (13,000 m2) facility on the west edge of downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. Adjacent to the headquarters is the 35,000-square-foot (3,300 m2) NCAA Hall of Champions.