The UA System Board of Trustees Physical Properties committee unanimously approved stage one and two of the plan for a new UAB football operations building on Thursday.

The project, which includes a turf field and is budgeted at $15,300,000, goes before the full board approval on Friday morning, but it was another positive step in the direction of the football program, which signed a top Conference USA class February and will resume competition in 2017.

Normally, new buildings in the UA System go through one stage during each board meeting. Two stages were compressed here, and it's possible stages three and four (of the four-stage process) could come together for the June meeting.

"It's just confirmation of where we've already been headed," UAB head football coach Bill Clark said. "It's a process that you go through at the University level to get buildings built and for them to put phase one and phase two together is a big deal because it really just speeds the process up."

State Rep. Jack Williams, a Republican from Vestavia Hills, said Friday's approval will be a formality.

"There has been a real change in the attitude of this board," Williams said. "The community is engaged with the board in ways it has never been before. It speaks to the maturation of the UA System.

"We're seeing them rise to the occasion that this is a three-campus system. There seems to be genuine excitement for the future of athletics at UAB."

The first stage requests the project be placed on the agendas for Physical Properties meetings and the second stage includes the project scope, budget and authority to negotiate an owner/architect agreement with Goodwyn Mills and Cawood, the architectural firm selected for the project.

The project will be on the south side of 6th Avenue between the George Wallace Building and 11th Street South.

The facility will encompass 46,000 square feet and be a two-story building and a turf field. Athletics offices in Ullman West would be temporarily relocated with Ullman West demolished.

The Consultant Selection Committee (CSC) interviewed four firms to serve as architect for the project.

Four firms interviewed on Jan. 7 along with Goodwyn Mills and Cawood. They were Davis Architects of Birmingham, Studio 2H Design of Birmingham and McKee and Associates of Montgomery.

The project will be funded by proceeds of a future UAB bond issue.

UAB softball also got some good news, as the committee approved new grandstands and a press box for Mary Bowers Field.

A gift in Bowers' honor of $1 million was recently donated, and that's how much the project will cost.

The existing press box will be torn down and rebuilt. The bleachers with 350 seats will be moved to the outfield and a new grandstands, set to seat 1,000, will be built.