The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
More improvements coming to Sanford Stadium in 2022
ATHENS — First-year Georgia Athletic Director Josh Brooks last spring talked about being more transparent about the Bulldogs’ strategic vision of the future. On Friday, Brooks shared some of that vision at the fall meeting of the athletic association’s board of directors.
With the No. 2-ranked Bulldogs’ football season underway, Georgia fans will be most interested to know about plans to expand and improve the South 100 concourse at Sanford Stadium. Part of the original stadium, that area long has been difficult for fans to negotiate during the Bulldogs’ biggest games. Brooks said a recently completed feasibility study showed that by demolishing the bathrooms and concession stands and moving them to another area, they can widen the concourse from 10 to 23 feet. Simultaneously, Georgia will construct new bathrooms and concession stands at either Gates 2 and 9 on either end of the concourse.
Meanwhile, the new construction in the southwest corner will provide the foundation for Phase II of that project, a new press box. The existing Dan Magill Press Box on the south side extends between the 30-yard lines on the the club level. That area will be converted to premium seating for donors.
Brooks couldn’t provide a precise timeline but projected that construction would begin late in 2022. He said UGA does not plan to raise funds for the project but will pay for it through loans and existing reserves.
On that note, Brooks reported that the ongoing $80 million Buttsmehre Heritage Hall expansion project that is adding 165,000 square feet in football facilities has been fully funded through pledges from members of UGA’S Magill Society donor group. Phase I of the new construction has been completed, and football coaches, players, trainers and strength-and-conditioning have moved into the facility. Phase II, which includes additional offices and meeting rooms, should be completed in 2022.
Brooks also announced plans to expand and improve Georgia’s baseball and softball stadiums. Studies are underway to explore improving athletes’ space underneath the first and third base sides of baseball’s Foley Field and softball’s Jack Turner Stadium, while also adding seating.
Meanwhile, as the Georgia football team transitions out of its previous spaces in the Butts-mehre complex, those areas are being renovated and retrofitted for other sports. The abandoned football locker room, sports-medicine training and strength-and-conditioning areas are in the process of being renovated for the men’s and women’s track and field locker rooms and coaches’ offices.
“We’re excited to get rolling on all these,” Brooks told the full board, which met at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education for nearly 90 minutes.
Probably the biggest news unveiled by Brooks had to do with the new $2.50 hot dogs that will be for sale at Sanford Stadium today. “I can’t reveal brand,” Brooks said, but “it’s almost double in size . ... It’s a bigger, thicker hot dog.”
Improvements all around at UGA.