UGA Athletic Board signs off on Butts Mehre expansion

A major expansion of UGA’s Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall — 165,000 square feet of new and improved space that will include a much larger operating area for the Bulldogs’ football program — was approved by the University of Georgia Athletic Association Board of Directors during its quarterly meeting in Athens.

From the AJC’s Chip Towers…

If Georgia wasn’t already in the SEC’s facilities race, the Bulldogs are now fully immersed and making a move toward the front of the pack.

The UGA Athletic Association’s board of directors, at its fall meeting Friday, unanimously approved Athletic Director Greg McGarity’s proposal to add an $80 million football operations building to the Bulldogs’ already sprawling football complex. The 165,000-square foot facility will be added to the existing Butts-Mehre building, so it has been deemed a renovation-and-expansion project.

“It's a great day for Georgia,” said McGarity, who had been at a Terry College building dedication Friday morning and was heading to the Dooley Field banquet at the Tate Center after the board meeting. “It’ll be a facility will all can be proud of and it’s really second to none.”

The new addition will give fourth-year football coach Kirby Smart another shiny toy to show recruits. Since Smart was tabbed as Georgia’s coach in December 2015, the Bulldogs have built the $30.5 million Payne Indoor Athletic Facility and the $63 million West End locker room and recruiting lounge at Sanford Stadium. The board’s latest gift brings that total to nearly $174 million.