ABAC Interim President Homer Day said the college owes special thanks to the local legislative delegation of Representative Austin Scott, Representative Newt Hudson, Representative Ray Holland, and Senator Rooney Bowen for their help in securing funding for the building.
"All four of these men as well as many other friends and alumni of ABAC throughout the state made this building possible," Day said. "It promises to be one of the signature buildings on campus."
The new building, which will be approximately 39,000 square feet, will include seven classrooms, including a distance learning classroom, five general labs, and two computer labs. One of the labs will be an outdoor animal science lab where students will actually work with and study live animals. In addition, the building will include a multi-purpose classroom, which will be used for conferences, the ABAC evening program, and the Public Service and Business Outreach Center. There will also be a student study area that opens to the outdoors. The capacity of the building will be 706.
Groups to be housed in the building include Animal Science, Plant Science, Ag Economics, and Family and Consumer Sciences. Although this will primarily be an agriculture building, the classrooms will be designed for multi-disciplinary usage and will be used for classes other than agriculture classes, such as history and English.
The building will be located next to the Yow Forestry/Wildlife Building just off Perimeter Road. A proposed Pedestrian Mall will lead from the center of the building entrance to the south side of the campus, to the day parking lot. The building plans were designed by the architectural firm of Yielding, Wakeford, and McGee.
Dr. Larry Allen, Chair of the Division of Agriculture and Forest Resources, said the new Agricultural Sciences Building will be a state-of-the-art, comprehensive building.
"This building will combine multi-disciplinary facilities and will be a showplace for the Ag Division and the entire ABAC community," Allen said. "It will be a focus facility whose magnitude and presence will be a great recruiting tool for ABAC in general. This building will give the ABAC community a great sense of pride. It's not just an Ag building; it's an ABAC building."
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