-- The players on Auburn's campus will be a short stroll away from all the food they can devour starting Aug. 1.

A new NCAA rule allowing unlimited meals to athletes will coincide with the opening of Auburn's Wellness Kitchen adjacent to the Auburn Athletics Complex and the South Donahue Residence Hall, which houses many of the Tigers' football players.

The project is four years in the making, and at a cost of $6.6 million, the full-service kitchen includes an on-site dietitian and chef to help prepare and design meals. Athletes -- and the general public -- will soon start walking through the doors for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

"We're going to provide for our student-athletes," Auburn athletics director

Jay Jacobs

said. "This is going to be the place. Auburn is going to be the best place a student can come for the student-athlete experience. That's what we're going to do."

Jacobs, a longtime advocate for universities to provide meals to its student-athletes, will get his wish starting Aug. 1 thanks to new NCAA legislation. The 550-plus student-athletes on campus will be allowed to eat unlimited meals at the facility. Auburn, foreseeing the possibility of the legislation passing, started budgeting for the unlimited meals plan two years ago.

Yearly costs to feed athletes are expected to reach $750,000, Jacobs said.

The facility includes six "action stations," where different meals are offered. It's an "all-you-care-to-eat" dining, including pizza, a carving station, and hot lines with meats and vegetables. Different meal options will rotate through the year. To the side is a salad bar, dessert bar and smoothie station for quick in-and-out access for players and the general public.

The facility will be closed on football game days in the fall, though separation between players and the public will be rare during normal dining hours.

Breakfasts will cost $9.80 and lunches will run $10.89 for the general public. Dinners will cost $17.99, according to

Scott Sehnert

, Auburn athletics' dietitian.

Meals for athletes will be tailored, too. Items will be marked with icons on overhead monitors for athletes looking to gain or lose weight, Sehnert said, and other meals could be prepared individually if a certain request is made by the athlete or athletics staff.

The options are healthy. Even the pizza doughs are being "tweaked" with lean proteins. There are also turkey burgers.

A separate kitchen will be used to prepare gluten-free foods, and other allergy-free items.

"Ninety percent of the food that people eat in here is going to be seen in front of you, and that's something I think that's important -- that you know how things are being prepared," Sehnert said.

The facility seats 170 indoors and an additional 50 in its "board room." An additional 100 seats are outside.

The wellness kitchen comes on the heels of the opening of the South Donahue Residence Hall across the street last fall. Construction costs for the facility, which houses athletes and students, was $67.7 million.

Jacobs doesn't expect any issues with the Tigers' meal budget for their athletes.

"To fuel our student-athletes is expensive," Jacobs said. "We're going to provide for our student-athletes. This is going to be the place. Auburn is going to be the best place a student can come for the student-athlete experience. That's what we're going to do. We're going to put everything in place we possibly can, whether it's the place they live, the place they eat, academic support, mentors, their social skills. Whatever it may be, we're going to put in front of them the best opportunities."

Meal plans for students -- at a cost of $995 -- have sold out.