The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents approved $239 million for five construction projects around the system during its quarterly board meeting Thursday.
As far as the College Station campus goes, the board approved building a baseball player development center as a separate project from the $80 million Blue Bell Park renovation project. It was one of two sports-related projects approved by the board.
A new arena/event center for East Texas A&M in Commerce was the largest amount approved. The new arena will cost $70 million and have 2,552 seats. It will be 63,514 square feet and host the East Texas A&M men's and women's basketball and volleyball programs as well as concerts and graduation ceremonies.
The arena project also will include an outdoor stage and spaces for outdoor dining/retail. Construction is scheduled to begin in March and be completed by October 2026.
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"This will be south of the new dining hall facility and will include a plaza connecting to the student dining facility," University System Chief Facilities Officer Brett McCully said during his report to the board. "The facility will have two levels, the lower level will contain the event space, locker rooms, training rooms and coaches' offices. The second level will include spectator seating, concessions, multipurpose function rooms and event spectator circulation."
The board also approved construction of a two-story Teaching & Academic Student Support Services facility at Prairie View A&M University. The building will be 42,082 square feet with space for several different offices as well as classroom space and a large lobby at the southeast corner. The building is expected to cost $45 million to build. Construction is set to begin later this month with completion scheduled for November 2026.
"This project will be located near the central part of the campus on Minor Street north of the memorial student center," McCully said. "The building will be arranged around a two-story lobby with indoor and outdoor seating adjacent to the existing quadrant."
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Texas A&M-San Antonio was approved to appropriate funding to build a 300-room residential hall on its campus. The new residence hall also will include a dining facility. The residence hall is still in the planning phase and there was no date set as to when it would be completed.
"The site of this project is located just south of Estrella Hall on the east side of our campus," Texas A&M-San Antonio president Dr. Salvador Hector Ochoa said. "Estrella Hall just opened this past fall. This new project will include an all-you can eat dining facility as well as a student lounge space and student study space."
Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service (TEEX) will get $30 million to build its South Texas Workforce Development project near the port of Brownsville. The new building will be 40,000 square feet and include space for offices, public spaces, classrooms and labs to provide hands-on instruction for a wide variety of manufacturing and technical industries along with a space for forklift training. Construction is scheduled to begin in April of this year with completion scheduled for November 2026.
"We are really excited about this building," TEEX Director David Coatney said. "We have about 2,000 square feet down there right now. Most of this will be [for] basic workforce development that can transition to advanced skills training and then also can transition into advanced manufacturing through that region."
Buildings Committee chair Randy Brooks also gave an update on other system construction projects. There are 37 currently under construction with another 50 in the planning or pre-construction phase.
Construction is underway on a number of projects in the Bryan-College Station area including the hypersonic wind tunnel and semiconductor research institute on RELLIS campus. Work is also ongoing on the new Veterinary Training Facility as well as the Texas A&M Space Institute in Houston.
In other committee meetings, the board heard updates on the system's investment portfolio as well as the revenue, expenses and budget results from Fiscal Year 2024.
The board held an executive session Thursday morning where it approved the creation of a partnership between Texas A&M and Aegis Aerospace that would allow Texas A&M students to conduct experiments in space. Also during the executive session, the board approved the establishment of the INSPIRE Alliance in the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES).
The board's next quarterly meeting will be May 28-30.
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