Leaders Break Ground on $150 Million Sports Illustrated Resort in North Tuscaloosa

Elected officials, professional athletes and brand representatives gathered on vacant land in North Tuscaloosa on Wednesday morning to break ground on the new $150 million Sports Illustrated resort expected to open in about two years.

As the Thread has extensively reported, Sports Illustrated and Travel + Leisure Co. have chosen Tuscaloosa as the site of their first-ever college-sports-oriented domestic resort hotel.

The large, mixed-use development will offer resort-style hotel rooms, condos for long-term tenants and new-to-market restaurants and retailers. Construction is set to begin soon on the north banks of the Black Warrior River, on vacant land along Rice Mine Road between Cypress Inn and the Northern Riverwalk.

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The resort will also include public-facing gathering spaces, including indoor and outdoor bars, a game lounge, a coffee bar, a broadcast booth, and a rooftop terrace event space.

At a Wednesday groundbreaking to celebrate the beginning of the project, Geoff Richards, the chief operating officer at Travel + Leisure Co., said there was no question about where to launch the first-of-its-kind college sports resort.

"Two years ago, I got the opportunity to walk through the football facility here at the University of Alabama. There's a hallway where, on both sides, all the way down, are covers of Sports Illustrated that the University of Alabama has been on. That was the moment — we knew this was the right flagship location," Richards said. "My hope would be that this location and other Sports Illustrated Resorts are on people’s sports bucket list. I want this to be a place where people say, 'I have to make a pilgrimage to Tuscaloosa to see a baseball game, a basketball game, a football game, and experience the Sports Illustrated Resort.'"

The resort is entirely unrelated to the $350 million University Beach lagoon resort planned for Highway 82 in Northport.

Other locations have been announced for Baton Rouge, Nashville and Chicago.

Daniel W. Dienst, the Chief Strategy Officer at Authentic Brands, said they bought Sports Illustrated nearly a decade ago, and they know they have a winner.

"We at Authentic own about 60 brands — Reebok, Champion, Brooks Brothers, and others. Sports Illustrated is special," Dienst said. "Since Authentic has owned Sports Illustrated — about eight years now — the average age of the audience has come down by almost 15 years. There's a next generation coming up in and around Sports Illustrated, and it's the most trusted brand in sports."

That will bring new, young sports fans to Tuscaloosa, Dienst said.

Elected officials, including Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox and Alabama State Rep. Norman Crow, were also there Wednesday to celebrate the groundbreaking - although Crow's office is in Montgomery now, he was the District 3 city councilman representing north Tuscaloosa during the years of discussions about the event.

"This brings an edge to the city of Tuscaloosa — another piece of the puzzle of development, and this time that piece is coming north of the river, in a location that is going to be one of the fastest growing areas of Tuscaloosa, not just now but into the future," Maddox said. "When you're going out and selling your community, you can sell on Mercedes-Benz, of course, and the University of Alabama. You can now also sell Sports Illustrated, because everybody knows Sports Illustrated. And we know you don't put that brand on something you don't trust or believe in."

Ongoing wet weather may mean that construction doesn't begin immediately after the groundbreaking, but work is expected to start this summer and finish in time for the resort to open in mid 2028.

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