Patriots officially open new team facility, New Balance Athletics Center

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The New England Patriots have a new home base to train, prepare, and recover on the Gillette Stadium grounds.

The Patriots officially opened the New Balance Athletics Center with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday afternoon.

The state-of-the-art facility is 160,000 square feet, making it the only facility in the NFL with that amount of space dedicated solely to football. It is also more than double the amount of space the team previously occupied at Gillette Stadium.

“There’s not a better place to train, to teach, and prepare our players,” Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel said.

The facility includes a 15,000-square-foot weight room, 11,000 square feet of dining and kitchen space, a 10,500-square-foot virtual reality room, and 3,700 square feet dedicated to hydrotherapy. The player locker room features 92 permanent lockers. The facility also includes a state-of-the-art war-room-style draft room where the Patriots conducted this year’s 2026 draft.

“We made a commitment to all our fans to do everything we could to build a first-class organization,” Patriots owner Robert Kraft said. “This building is the latest example of that commitment.”

The virtual reality room is the width of a regulation NFL field and provides 20 yards of unobstructed depth, with nearly twice the VR space previously available to the team. The expanded hydrotherapy area similarly represents a significant increase in the Patriots’ recovery capabilities, providing players with greater access to hot and cold plunge pools with 3,700 square feet devoted to hydrotherapy and recovery.

“If we were to ever lose, I don’t think we’re going to be able to use facilities as a reason for our loss,” Vrabel said with a smile.

The facility’s dining and kitchen area was designed more like a restaurant than a traditional team cafeteria, with three cooking lines and dedicated walk-in refrigeration to support the team’s nutrition program. The building also includes 95 covered parking spaces below the facility.

“We spend more time here than we do with our own families at our own homes, and we’re proud to call this home,” Vrabel said.

The Patriots host the Colts in the team’s first preseason game Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. at Gillette Stadium.

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