Auburn won't be renovating the north end zone of Jordan-Hare Stadium until at least 2018, athletic director Jay Jacobs said Wednesday.

The delayed project, which is projected to cost more than $140 million, was first proposed in May 2015 with the possibility of construction beginning at the end of that season. It includes an expanded concourse and walkway, club seating, a new video scoreboard, a recruiting lounge and a new locker room among other amenities.

"It is not dead," Jacobs said prior to his meeting with the Montgomery Quarterback Club. "We're continuing to work on that and we still have the same goals in mind. We want to create a great fan experience, we want to have a great place for our football team to play and a great experience for our recruits. When we get a package ready to present to the Auburn family and they think that renovating the north end is ready to go, we'll do it."

Jacobs said he doesn't want to disrupt anything during Auburn's 2017 season, which includes home games against Georgia Southern, Mercer, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Georgia, Louisiana-Monroe and Alabama.

In December 2015, Auburn sent out a survey to roughly 5,000 accounts through Tigers Unlimited to gauge interest in the project. While Jacobs said the response was "very positive," Auburn has yet to determine whether it will be financially feasible.

"There are certainly some that we have to be sensitive to because there are some families, some of our grassroots donors and grassroots fans that have been sitting in the north end zone for quite some time," he said. "We have to make it where it's good for everybody. Sometimes that's hard to do, but we're smart enough and we can figure that out."

"As we move forward and we get the pro forma like we want it, we'll announce to the Auburn people exactly what the options are and they'll decide."

 

Source : al.com

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