Auburn, AL (EETV) – Auburn has added a new $224 million, 256,000-square-foot academic complex for students in STEM and agricultural science fields. Construction of the STEM + Agricultural Sciences Complex was completed in spring 2026, with the grand opening in fall that same year.
Auburn hopes the complex will provide students and faculty with the space needed for various learning and research projects. The complex also features underground walkways and skybridges that connect the three different buildings allowing faculty and staff to move through the complex with ease.
Around 70% of the complex is dedicated to research laboratories and teaching laboratories that all students and faculty can utilize in their research. One particular laboratory highlight is the soil teaching laboratory. The laboratory is on the ground floor with doors leading outside for easy access to planter boxes.
Steve Hague, the department head of environmental science, explains how the complex allows different departments to work together and collaborate better than before, specifically in reference to the planter boxes being taken care of by the horticulture department.
Hague said, “It’s really a team within these departments and in these complexes that make everything go.”
Hague also compares the new complex to the previous Funchess Hall that housed agricultural sciences before the new complex opened, “We have a nicer, cleaner space that’s more functional... and it represents Auburn.”
The new complex also replaces the former Parker Hall, which housed the College of Science and Mathematics. Parker Hall had classrooms and laboratories for students and faculty to use; however, being built in 1963, they were not the most up-to-date environments for students and faculty to work in. The new complex addresses this issue by providing new spaces for students and faculty to work and by designing them to support future renovations that keep pace with Auburn researchers' needs.
