There’s change coming to Sanford Stadium – Georgia’s getting a new locker room and it’s moving from its current location.
On Thursday, the UGA athletic board approved $1 million dollars to serve as an initial exploratory step that ultimately will result in a major enhancement to the West end zone of the stadium, that once completed will include a brand new spacious locker room for football.
That’s not all.
Other improvements will include a space to host and entertain recruits on game day, as well as improvements to restroom and concession areas.
“The purpose of the stadium project is to ask the question, ‘What can we do to maximize our space,’” athletic director Greg McGarity said. “That’s what an architect will help us answer. Right now, we have a lot of dreams and ideas for how to use the space and getting an architect on board will allow us to document that.”
The visiting team’s locker room will remain in its current position located in the South end zone.
McGarity could not say when the actual construction would begin.
The $1 million was part of a $9 million approved for different facility-related projects that were approved by the UGA Athletic Board during its quarterly meeting Thursday in Greensboro.
Others include:
• Enhancements to Stegeman Coliseum, Phase 1 - $1,800,000. Plans include a large-scale aesthetic improvement to the southeast end zone, a space currently occupied with achievement banners of all three sports competing in the Coliseum. The display – which will consists of a mural featuring former UGA men’s and women’s basketball players, along with former gymnastics greats, will surround, keeping intact, the existing video board.
• Jack Turner Soccer stadium renovation -- $4,575,000. This renovation project will replace the grandstand and press box, which had been intact since the soccer stadium was built in 1998.
The board also approved a budget of $123,049,705 for fiscal year 2017.
McGarity also used the meeting to apologize to the board for details of the contract with Grammy winner Ludacris for G-Day, which included riders for condoms and alcohol.
“I do want to take this opportunity to apologize to our board for mistakes we made with certain aspects of the details of an entertainment agreement,” McGarity told the board. “Few things in my professional life have bothered me more than this situation. There are no reruns in life so we need to turn the page, learn from our mistakes and do everything we can to make sure errors of this nature do not occur.”
In other news:
• Faculty Athletics Representative David Shipley praised a record 60 percent of UGA’s nearly 500 student-athletes earning at least a 3.0 grade point average in the Spring Semester 2016. The average GPA of all student-athletes this spring was 3.04 and included 35 that posted perfect 4.0 GPAs.
• Student representatives to the athletic board will be track performer Kendall Williams and Jeb Blazevich from the football team.
