We're Building a Place to call Home!
The “Let’s build a place to call home” campaign has achieved several milestones in recent months and the project has expanded significantly thanks to many progressive initiatives. The 9,000 seat football stadium will be the focal point of pride for an athletic complex for men’s and women’s intercollegiate sports. To see an updated version of the stadium renderings, visit the Design Concepts page.
Governor Sonny Perdue approved an appropriation of $1.9 million in the 2009 state budget proposed by the Georgia General Assembly for road and bridge infrastructure to connect the current campus to a gift of approximately 250 acres of land donated by the City of Carrollton.
Not only does this provide direct connectivity from campus to the new land, it opens the door to an expanded athletic complex which is being made possible by a bold vote by the Student Government Association for a student facility fee to augment the private fundraising efforts.
The unanimous SGA vote will provide additional funding to expand the
scope for the project to move all athletics activities to the adjacent
acreage. This will, in turn, free up valuable space in the heart
of campus for future academic facilities.
The scope of the project will not only feature the UWG football stadium but also an athletics administration building to house locker rooms, weight and training rooms, the academic support lab, an assembly area and Department of Athletics offices. A women’s field house will also be built between the women’s softball and soccer fields, and practice fields will be located at this site.
With the addition of these important facilities, the cost of the fully built project is now $29 million. Through private fundraising and the student fee, $24 million is currently in the project budget. Renewed fundraising efforts to identify new partners and the hard work of enthusiastic volunteers will put us over the top on this project.
The economic impact on our community and region will be immediate and profound. Building these facilities now will help continue to attract additional excellent students, potentially driving our enrollment from the current 10,600 students to over 15,000 students. UWG is expected to cross the 11,000 student mark this fall. Once this enrollment goal is achieved, the institution desires to move from NCAA Division II status to NCAA Division I (Division I-AA in football) and play against such teams as The Citadel, Furman, Appalachian State, and Georgia Southern to name a few. If you are known by the company you keep, West Georgia’s institutional reputation and recognition will surely increase as millions of potential students (through television) are introduced to UWG through athletics. This awareness will then drive both enrollment of students and reputation of the university.
More students will stay in town on the weekends. The business community in Carroll County has created the conditions for substantial job growth for college students. With a combination of good jobs and a robust student life, students are choosing to remain on campus on the weekends, thus erasing a long held label of “suitcase college.” Alumni from the surrounding areas and Atlanta will have additional reasons to spend time on campus and in the surrounding community. Atlanta-based alumni from competing institutions will also come to town.
Once completed, these facilities will serve more than athletics. They will serve the idea that this university will continue to stand up and take its place amongst the other great institutions in the South as it enters into its second century.
