The Butts-Mehre Expansion Project at Georgia

When your mascot is a bulldog and you compete in the SEC, you need your student-athletes to always feel like the big dogs on campus. That’s exactly what the University of Georgia athletics department is doing with their massive facility upgrades.

The Bulldogs are preparing to open their doors to the newly renovated Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall this fall. Though not completely finished — ‘Phase II’ is scheduled to be completed in early 2022 — the facility boasts 165,000 square feet of new and renovated space for the price tag of $80 million, according to a report from the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

This project, a massive expansion of the Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall athletics headquarters building, created the new daily home of the football program — “the lifeblood of our program and our future,” as it’s described on the Georgia Bulldog Club website.

Current players and recruits have reported being wowed by the new space and its amenities. Georgia head coach Kirby Smart bragged at SEC Media Days last month: “It wouldn’t be possible without our administration and fan support, but it’s incredible.”

The facility, adjacent to the outdoor and indoor practice fields, includes a new and much-expanded weight room, which Smart said is the “largest weight room in the country.” The project also includes an expanded locker room, meeting rooms, nutrition area, and sports-medicine areas (”the largest athletic training facility that I’ve ever seen,” Smart said).

» ALSO SEE: Charlotte 49ers Install New AstroTurf Field

The project was approved by the Athletic Association board in September 2019. Construction began in January 2020 and continued through the pandemic. The board was told early this year that $71.5 million of the $80 million needed to complete the project had been raised by the department’s development office through donations and pledges.

The facelift to the Butts-Mehre facility builds on the addition of the new lights to Sanford Stadium in 2019. The $1 million addition boasts a computer-controlled LED lighting system, with the ability to change the effects and colors of the lights (especially to red, naturally), which was installed in time for a much-anticipated night game against Notre Dame between the hedges in September 2019.

To read about all of the updates with the Georgia athletic department from the Atlanta Constitution Journal, click here.