KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Break out the shovels.

On Tuesday on the UM-Kansas City campus, the UM System Board of Curators approved a motion to proceed with the Memorial Stadium project. Part of that includes a proposed groundbreaking ceremony on Nov. 30, which will be the first tangible, if not somewhat ceremonial, step in the $250 million upgrades to Missouri football’s home stadium.

Mizzou athletic director Laird Veatch gave a short presentation to the board before the motion was unanimously approved by the university board.

Given the board's previous support of the project, any motion concerning the stadium was expected to be given the go-ahead.

The groundbreaking ceremony will take place the same as Mizzou’s regular-season finale against Arkansas. Work on the project is set to run through the 2025 season and is currently on pace to be completed ahead of the 2026 campaign, which will mark the 100th anniversary of Missouri’s home stadium.

Back in April, the board originally gave the go-ahead on a $250 million upgrade to the north concourse of Memorial Stadium. The project, led by architecture firm DLR Group, will connect the east and west stands overlooking Faurot Field, with an additional 2,000 premium seats tabbed.

There will be field-level seating added beneath the stadium’s novel Rock M and grassy seating area, which will be able to hold 300 people, per a news release. There also will be premium seating added above the hill, which will make up the majority of the 160,500 square feet of the construction project.

The capacity of Memorial Stadium is expected to rise to about 65,000, up from the 62,261 that the stadium currently holds.

Significant funding — outwith a sizable anonymous $62-million donation secured in January that pledged $50 million toward stadium renovations — was still required for the stadium at that point.

In June, new MU athletic director Laird Veatch said that the university had secured 10 more seven-figure donations ($1 million or more) toward the project. Veatch, in a video posted to the Missouri athletics YouTube page in August, said the project still needed significant funding but was on pace to be completed on time. The athletic director reiterated the need for additional funding Thursday in Kansas City.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: UM Board approves motion to proceed with Missouri football stadium upgrades