GREENSBORO — Kirby Smart is getting another facility upgrade for the football program.

UGA's track and field teams are set to make way for Smart’s two-time defending national champions with plans revealed Friday for new indoor and outdoor track facilities on South Milledge Avenue, about 2½ miles away from its longtime track.

The current site of the Spec Towns Track, constructed in 1964 and long used by those in the community, will give the football program side-by-side grass fields. Athletic director Josh Brooks said he spoke to the Towns family and the name will go onto the new track facility.

Georgia’s athletic board voted Friday to authorize preliminary planning for the changes, but Brooks said there is no timeline yet for when the new track facilities will open and couldn’t estimate a price tag. Kentucky in 2022 approved $20 million for a new indoor track facility, but costs can vary depending on the scope of the project.

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Smart made his first appearance at a board meeting since he was a student and Bulldog safety in the 1990s.

He spoke at the start of its meeting at the Ritz-Carlton Lodge about the need for the changes.

Smart said Georgia is one of only two programs in SEC without natural grass football fields side-by-side. He said it would save about $1.5 million for costs for re-sodding the fields each year and bussing campers to the intramural fields. It would offer more space and efficiency to a practice area that includes the $30.2 million indoor practice facility.

“The wear and tear on turf is really tough,” Smart said.

He said that longtime football head athletic trainer Ron Courson wanted to come to speak about the benefits.

“I said, 'Ron I’m not going to put everyone through that,'” Smart said.

Instead, Courson sent Smart a 10-page package of info. Smart cited a 2023 NFLPA study reporting a higher injury rate on artificial turf.

Smart said the team hasn’t been able to practice on the grass fields in the postseason because it’s too worn down by then.

Taking over the track space is the latest upgrade for Georgia’s football program. Besides the indoor practice facility, the program added an $80 million football operations center, a $63 million west end zone project for a new locker room and recruiting lounge and Sanford Stadium is currently undergoing $68.5 million in a two-phase renovation project that will offer widened concourses, additional bathroom and concessions and new premium seating where the current press box is located.

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Caryl Smith Gilbert, hired from Southern Cal where she won a track national championship, threw her support around the changes in a video shown at the board meeting. She couldn’t attend due to an NCAA regional meet in Jacksonville.

“This project will continue to elevate our track and field programs to compete in SEC and NCAA championships,” Smith Gilbert said. “Our own dedicated space off South Milledge will provide an area for our athletes to train all year long. It will bring young people to our campus to compete in junior events, while giving us an area to host elite SEC and NCAA competition. This will be a truly one-of-a-kind facility."

She said in 2021 after she was hired that Smart had talked to her about his desire to use the track site for football practices.

“Coach Smart, one thing I know about him is he’s highly focused on efficiencies in everything he does,” Brooks said after the meeting. “As most of you know, he wants to find efficient ways to practice, doesn’t want to waste one second, one minute to practice.”

Brooks is working with the university to secure the land on S. Milledge for track,

He said it would be across the street from the soccer/softball complex and could alleviate parking issues there for games.

Two years ago, Brooks spoke about a “five-to-seven-year” vision of athletic facilities.

That wasn’t a quick enough timeline for another national champion track coach, Petros Kyprianou, who left when his contract ran out in 2021 instead of taking a multi-year extension, and now is head coach at Illinois.

“I just needed a written commitment that we’re going to break ground at some point whether it’s three years, five years, seven years, eight years,” he said in 2021. “Something that will give me the peace of mind that I can recruit and tell the current student-athletes.”

Said Brooks: “At that time we were very clear that we couldn’t commit to it, there were other things that were higher on the priority list such as softball and baseball and we’re addressing that now.”

Now Smith Gilbert and her program will benefit from the coming facility changes.

Georgia is not looking at hosting large events at its indoor track facility which could cutdown on costs, but its outdoor venue may be suitable for SEC championships or an NCAA Regional.

Georgia made this move knowing that it would impact residents who have enjoyed the use of the Spec Towns track which is located adjacent to S. Lumpkin Street.

"I think there's a number of ways we would look at it to see what we could do right there,” said Brooks, whose 13-year old son has competed in track for years. “I'm going to explore other opportunities to provide. Look, it's important to me. Nobody's spent more time at that track the last seven years than me with my son so I know full well, but there's other facilities in Athens.”

He mentioned Clarke Central High which he said recently resurfaced its track,

“That's a great surface as well that's open to the community,” he said. “It's probably more open than ours because we have to shut ours down a lot during the day because our track athletes are working on it.”

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Georgia build ingnew track facilities, football adding practice field