Slowly, the long process for the construction of the Anderson Family Football Complex is beginning to take shape.

Kansas Athletics, Inc., released new details of the $31 million facility, including the location of the stand-alone building and two full-length practice fields adjacent to Memorial Stadium. Consistent with the promise not to block the view of Campanile Hill, the new amenities instead will surround the treasured scenery.

The fields will be located southeast of the stadium (parking lots 91-93), while the building itself will be erected on the southwest side, also over a current parking lot.

Knowing that such plans will take a significant chunk of parking out of the equation, KU’s initial plans are to find more places to put parking spaces – primarily west of the stadium.

“We will replace every parking space displaced by the new practice fields,” Chancellor Robert Hemenway said in a statement.

Associate athletic director Jim Marchiony said Friday that brainstorming would begin immediately to find those potential parking areas, but couldn’t say whether building into the hill west of the stadium would be a possible solution.

This aerial photo of Memorial Stadium shows the proposed site of the Anderson Family Football Complex.

“We’re not sure right now,” Marchiony said. “That’s what we’re going to start working on right now.”

Friday’s release states that parking will take first priority and will be solved by the beginning of the 2007 season. Work on the two practice fields will begin in the summer of ’07 and finish that fall. The construction of the building will start in the spring of 2007 and be completed in the summer of ’08.

As for the building itself, there’s no artist’s rendering available, and Marchiony said no timetable was in place to release one. What is known is that the building will be 80,000 square feet, with up to half of that underground. The top floor will be reserved for athletics administrative offices, while the basement level will house the football training area, locker rooms and other athletic facilities.

HNTB Architecture out of Kansas City, Mo., is in charge of the project, and will be working closely with a seven-person KU building committee, which includes Sean Lester, associate athletic director, and George Matsakis, director of football operations.