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Funds provided for stadium

• The University System of Georgia helps lift a financial burden off Albany State University.

Barbara Rivera Holmes

ALBANY — An agreement between Albany State University and the University System of Georgia will allow the school to keep its stadium, initiate design work for a fine arts center and move forward with drafting a 25-year master plan.

ASU President Everette J. Freeman announced Thursday that the university and the system will each contribute $1.1 million toward the $2.2 million debt on the Albany Municipal Coliseum.

Freeman said the school would “use some of our contingency funds and auxiliary funds to meet that challenge.” Auxiliary funds, he explained, are revenues from operations including the campus bookstore.

Leading up to the decision, the school faced default on the $2.2 million construction loan and the loss of the $1.1 million it put up as collateral. In an effort to raise funds for the stadium, Freeman had most recently proposed a $100 per semester increase in student fees, an proposal that did not bode well with the majority of his pupils.

“The University System of Georgia has been very kind in working with ASU in resolving the issue with the stadium,” Freeman said Thursday during an 11 a.m. news conference.

Freeman said the system “will provide the support for us in paying off the stadium” and “will complete the process of (ASU) owning the stadium out right.”

Freeman was joined at the podium by high-ranking ASU officials, the president of the ASU Student Government Association and state Rep. Winfred Dukes, D-Albany. Freeman thanked Dukes and state Rep. Freddie Powell Sims, D-Albany, for their “key role(s) in advocating for ASU.”

John Millsaps of the University System of Georgia said Thursday afternoon that the agreement was made between system officials and ASU, and that the the Board of Regents was later briefed on the matter. The agreement, he said, did not require a board vote.

In resolving the stadium debt, the system and Albany State made headway on two other issues: A fine arts center and a master plan.

ASU officials said the University System of Georgia accepted the school’s $1.1 million collateral on the stadium to start designing the Ray Charles Performing Arts and Academic Center. The design, a news release states, will likely cost $1.5 million-$2 million.

Millsaps said that “the center was on the Regents’ priority list for fiscal year 2009 and fiscal year 2010, but it was on hold because of the (debt) situation with the stadium.

“We (couldn’t) move forward on that as long as that money (the collateral) was tied up on the loan,” he said.

Freeman wouldn’t elaborate on the source of the remaining design funds, but Millsaps said that ASU “needs help with the design, so (the USG) will provide design funds (to) move forward for construction in FY 2010.”

Freeman said design work would begin “as soon a possible.”

The university president also shared that the system would support ASU as it begins work on a 25-year master plan.

The school’s current master plan was implemented in 1998 and stretches through 2017, Freeman said, “but the campus looks nothing like it did in 1998.”

A new plan, he said, would enable the school to meet the demands of the extra 100,000 students the system expects by 2020. As much as 70 percent of those students, a March 19 USG news release states, will likely concentrate in Metro Atlanta.

“We look at our campus as a growing campus,” Freeman said.

Freeman also declined to talk about details for funding the master plan, instead repeating that those details also are being worked out.

While Millsaps said he couldn’t find a dollar figure for the master plan, he did confirm that funding assistance had been offered to the school.

“If Dr. Freeman and the ASU administration think that (the plan) is important, (then) we also offered that (funds),” Millsaps said.

Millsaps couldn’t say whether the system had helped fund a stadium before, but did say that, “We absolutely work with campuses in many ways to address their needs and issues. ASU had unique challenges after the Flood of ’94.

“It’s not unusual for the system to step in,” he said.

SGA President Jazzmin Randall said she was pleased with Thursday’s announcement, specifically the agreement regarding the stadium debt.

Her role in that, she said, was “standing the ground in saying that, ‘There’s got to be other options. The (proposed student fee) increase is too high.”

“I’m glad that we were able to get the $1 million as collateral, keep our stadium, the Ray Charles center,” she said.

The weeks and months leading up to Thursday’s announcement have been a learning curve, Randall said, and added that the resolution should soothe recent student unrest.

“Now that they (students) know that everything is OK .... we have all learned a big lesson: to communicated effectively,” said Randall, a senior. “It’s a big stepping stone.”

During his announcement, Freeman said that it takes a group effort for ASU to succeed and that he’ll work to “continue to effectively communicate with SGA.”

Asked about the student rising that stemmed in part from the stadium debt and proposed fee increases, he replied that, “I do not want to focus on the past, I want to focus on the future. That’s the story.”

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