news home ::: rankings ::: features

Jo Ann Chitty, executive director of the UGA Real Estate Foundation, and Chairman Jack Rooker stand on the site of the first construction project to be funded by the foundation. The Broad Street property will soon be home to studios for the Lamar Dodd School of Art and the School of Environmental Design.

The bustle of two construction sites on the north and south ends of campus might not seem to have much in common, or even much significance at a university with 12 million square feet of developed space.

But both projects—on Broad Street bordering downtown and in the Stegeman Coliseum parking lot—are part of a revolutionary new way of financing some construction at the University of Georgia that will cut as much as a decade off the typical wait for a new building.

They are the first projects to be undertaken by the new UGA Real Estate Foundation. The foundation is modeled after a similar organization at the University of Virginia, but UGA President Michael Adams first encountered the creative approach to college real estate at Pepperdine University in California.

Up to now, virtually all major construction at UGA had been approved and funded by the University System's Board of Regents (Terry's privately funded Sanford Hall being one exception). But regents approval often took 10 years or more because of too little funding for too many building requests coming from 34 state colleges and universities. Soon after arriving, Adams began considering ways for the University of Georgia to fund its own badly needed construction projects, which led to last year's creation of the Real Estate Foundation.

To chair the foundation, Adams sought out John W. "Jack" Rooker (BBA '60), a savvy, successful real estate developer in Atlanta with strong ties to the university as a managing trustee of UGA's fund-raising foundation. Rooker is chief executive officer of both John W. Rooker and Associates Inc., a general contractor based in Tucker specializing in warehouse construction, and Southern Bonded Warehouse Co. in Morrow.

In his 41-year career, taking advantage of the metro Atlanta boom, Rooker has developed and constructed more than 25 million square feet of warehouse space, including the Yokohama Tire facility in the Barrow Industrial Park on Ga. Hwy. 316.

"I don't know that I was very good at predicting what was going to happen," says Rooker, a rangy, athletic man who is quietly effective as a dealmaker. "All I tried to do was just take advantage of every opportunity that came my way." He brings the same practical philosophy to the foundation, which addresses the needs of a university bursting at the seams.

"Dr. Adams knew the university had a fair amount of pent-up demand for new facilities that was going to be hard to get done in the traditional manner in a timeframe that made sense to him," Rooker says. With Jo Ann Chitty, a veteran real estate professional, serving as executive director and Rooker chairing a small board of trustees, the Real Estate Foundation wasted no time getting started.

The foundation's strategy is to issue 30-year bonds to fund new real estate projects and then to retire the debt with parking or housing fees, rental payments and private funds. The first two construction projects are funded through the foundation's line of credit. The first $30 million bond issue is scheduled for this spring.

The project on Broad Street next to the Holiday Inn is a $3 million renovation of retail storefront properties to accommodate studios for the Lamar Dodd School of Art and the School of Environmental Design. The project also increases the university's footprint in downtown Athens.

"Dr. Adams wanted to expand the campus on Broad Street to give it more of a presence in downtown Athens," Rooker says. "The fact that those buildings were becoming available and were in transition produced the opportunity to get them and convert them into something very desirable."

A $20 million, four-story parking deck on South Campus will provide spaces for 820 cars and serve primarily as the parking facility for the announced Paul D. Coverdell Building for Biomedical and Health Sciences, which is being built through a public-private partnership with the state and federal government.

"We've got to get that parking deck ready for the first football game this fall," Rooker notes. "We're not anticipating having it completely finished by then, but we have to have it usable. We're taking up 500 spaces to produce 820, so it's a net gain. Football really screams for that parking."

Also in the works are still-confidential projects for student housing. Rooker says that student housing will be a priority because Adams ultimately wants to add 6,000 more beds for students.

Rooker stresses that the foundation is keeping the Board of Regents fully informed about all its projects. "By no means is the Real Estate Foundation trying to do any of the projects that the regents would do," Rooker says. "We're just trying to complement the regents and do some things a little sooner than could be done in the normal course of activity. We'll do it with some private dollars, with some debt, to get the facilities up and going."

He says the university was previously in the situation of a family that had to save the full purchase price of a home before it could buy. "From the time you knew you needed a project, then you got on the priority list and started going through the process, it could take up to 10 years," he says.

Rooker acknowledges that the potential for the Real Estate Foundation is staggering. "It could be huge. There is a strong demand for more physical space. There are professors at the university who do not have adequate space to do their jobs. And there's pressure for private space, too. It doesn't have to be right on campus but it has to be very accessible to what's going on at the university."

An example of the need for private space is the pharmaceutical industry, with companies that want to be close to the university's research because of the time pressures of drug development, Rooker says.

"You're going to see a lot of private-public cooperation, in my opinion, with both sides coming out winners."