Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne recently was at a grocery store when a man approached him.

"When are you going to build the arena?" the man asked.

It's been a question on many minds since the UA System Board of Trustees gave the greenlight in February 2022 to start the formal planning for a new basketball and gymnastics arena. At that point, the price tag was mentioned to be about $183 million.

Byrne, while appearing on "The Next Round" show on Friday, said that number has increased to about a quarter of a billion dollars.

"In the architects' defense, they didn’t anticipate the level of inflation we’ve been under for the last year," Byrne said. "So over about two or three more meetings, I would walk in there and they would have very grim-looking faces on them. ‘It’s gone up.' ‘How much?' '$25 million.’ The next meeting, another $25 million. The third one, now we think we could be close to $250 million. That was not what we were expecting."

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That hasn't changed Byrne's objective to get it built. The higher number has just created a greater challenge to get a new arena.

Going back to the man in the grocery store, Byrne also had a question for him:

"(Men's basketball coach) Nate (Oats) has said he wants the arena," Byrne said he told the man. "And he does. He and I talk about it regularly. (Women's basketball coach) Kristy Curry wants the arena. (Gymnastics coach) Ashley Priess-Johnston wants the arena for gymnastics. You know who may want the new arena more than any of these people?"

"Who?" the man replied.

"Me," Byrne said.

It's just a matter of raising the funds for it.

"I want our fans to know, we have not sat still," Byrne said. "We have continued to work on it. We’re working on it every single day. We have fiduciary responsibilities where I can’t jeopardize the rest of our department based off one facility."

In terms of not sitting still, Byrne said he was in Birmingham on Thursday trying to raise money for the arena. A gift came in Friday morning, too.

"Our donors have been extremely generous," Byrne said.

That will have to continue for the arena to be built.

"It’s not just as simple as saying, 'Let’s go spend a quarter of a billion dollars and anything else, to heck with it,'" Byrne said.

Alabama athletics had a $18.5 million surplus in the most recent fiscal year, but a significant portion of that has gone to paying off debt.

The man at the grocery store isn't the first to ask Byrne that question, and he won't be the last. Byrne actually appreciates that people want to talk about it.

“You know what’s really cool? The fact there’s such passion with wanting to do this," Byrne said. "So many schools are just trying to get people to care. One of the things we’re so fortunate about at Alabama is people care."

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Greg Byrne on new Alabama basketball arena and higher cost estimate