The muddy terrain in front of the Leo Seal M-Club will have transformed into a grassy knoll designed for tailgaters and student activities by August.
Time hasn’t been an issue for the completion of The Junction, Student Association President Jon David Cole said, but money has, meaning much of the aesthetic landscaping won’t be done until funds are raised.
“[The project] is definitely on schedule,” Cole said. “Unfortunately, with various costs that the university has incurred, [MSU] only has enough money for the hardscape, so the only things that are going to be done are the brick walkways, the sidewalks, the road changes and putting sod down.”
Features such as trees, greenery and a fountain will have to sit on the backburner until funds are available to install them.
“There are absolutely zero dollars for trees, landscaping or maintenance,” Cole said. “It’s a big problem because we want this new area that we want to start a tradition in to look great.”
Because of the monetary issue The Junction is faced with, the area will have to be developed on a step-by-step basis, director of campus landscape Tim Lacy said .
“It will be kind of a phased type of construction,” Lacy said. “This year we’ll have all the hardscapes in because that’s harder to come back to later. Once you get the infrastructure in, it’s pretty easy to add to it.”
Cole said the area will be ideal for campus activities and tailgating, but he’s faced opposition regarding The Junction’s purpose.
“If athletic director [Larry Templeton] had his way, he wouldn’t have a single tailgater on The Junction,” Cole said. “The Student Association takes a very different approach. We want it filled with tailgaters.”
To ensure that tailgaters occupy the area, the Game day Committee and the president’s office approved a plan that will allow about three-fourths of The Junction to be used for nothing but tailgating, Cole said.
Aside from drawing in sports fans, vice president for finance and administration Ray Hayes said The Junction is a vital part of the “pedestrian friendly” campus MSU is developing through the campus master plan.
“The whole Junction area is going to be much more than the football games,” Hayes said.
“It’ll be a place for organization events, recreational space and a pedestrian thoroughfare,” he said.
Hayes said that by this fall, Creelman Street will be located several hundred feet closer to Dorman Hall, adding extra green space to The Junction. The road will connect to Stone Boulevard as a three-lane street to Miss. Highway 12, making it a more utilized entryway to campus.
“The concept is to have a new green area, not like the Drill Field in its function, but a nice entrance to campus, and we feel like the new Stone Boulevard will become one of the new main entrances to campus,” Lacy said.
“Our goal is that when people come onto campus, they come into something that is indicative to what we’re trying to do on campus from a beautification standpoint,” she added.
The Junction project is the first of its kind, something Lacy said he is proud to be a part of.
“I don’t think there’s another university in the country that has this type of atmosphere this close to a stadium,” he said.
“This is really a student-driven project. The Junction is an answer to what the students were calling for. Their thumbprints are all over it,” he added.