Yates Field House
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 The entrance of Yates Field House | |
  Yates Field House Location within Washington, D.C.  Yates Field House Location within the United States | |
| Location | 3700 O Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 38°54′33″N 77°04′36″W / 38.90917°N 77.07667°W |
| Owner | Georgetown University |
| Operator | Georgetown University |
| Construction | |
| Broke ground | 1977 |
| Opened | July 30, 1979 |
| Renovated | 1987, 2002, 2019 |
| Construction cost | $7.5 million (equivalent to $33.27 million in 2025) |
| Website | |
| yatesfieldhouse.com | |
Yates Field House is a recreation and intramural sports complex at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. It was built in the late 1970s largely underground, on the site of the university's football stadium.
The four-level, 142,000-square foot facility includes 2 racquetball courts, 5 squash courts, 4 newly renovated indoor basketball courts (as of 2025), a 200-meter jogging track and 25-meter eight-lane indoor swimming pool, a diving pool, along with exercise rooms, weight rooms, locker rooms, saunas and a half-acre dance area. The facility is home to many varsity sports teams including swim and dive, tennis and other. The center was named after the Rev. Gerard F. Yates, a long-standing Georgetown professor of government, and dean of the graduate school. [1]
Problems with the unusual roof arrangement — including torn artificial turf, pooling rainwater and interior leaks — have led to major renovations in 1987, 2002 and 2019, and periodic calls for Yates to be replaced.[2] Because of problems with the playing surface, varsity teams have not used the rooftop Kehoe Field since 2002, and even intramural and recreational users were barred from the roof in 2016. Since then renovations have taken place and recreational users have been welcomed back, as well as varsity sports, including field hockey, and track teams.
In the mid-1970s, Georgetown sought to expand student and faculty opportunities for recreation, training and fitness, and relieve overcrowding on the varsity sports fields and at McDonough Gymnasium. Planners found it difficult to find the space on campus, or acquire new land adjacent to campus, that they would need for such a large facility.[3]
The solution was to dig up Kehoe Field, the varsity football stadium on campus, and build the field house underneath. While under construction, Yates was known on campus as the "Rec-Plex". In addition to saving the cost buying land for a campus expansion, the underground location was also projected to cost 30% less to heat and cool than an aboveground structure.[3]
Kehoe Field had hosted varsity and intramural sports at Georgetown since 1956.[4] During the construction, the football team played its 1977 and 1978 home games in the outfield of the baseball field,[5] in a natural bowl on the present-day site of the Georgetown business school's Rafik B. Hariri Building.
After two years of construction, the $7.5 million fieldhouse opened July 30, 1979, eight months behind schedule. The rooftop football field, which retained the name Kehoe Field, was ready in time for the 1979 season.[6]
