The Michigan State Board of Trustees approved planning for an $18 million expansion project at Spartan Stadium on Friday, according to a report from Diamond Leung of MLive.com. The project is designed to upgrade locker rooms for teams, coaches, and officials. It will also bring improvements to the equipment room, recruiting room and media center. School President Lou Anna K. Simon called the updates to the locker room areas long overdue:

"Waiting 34 years to make changes may have been a bit long. The conditions are not good. We are going to rely on external dollars, donor dollars to do this."

There is still another level of formality to the process, as the Board of Trustees will vote on an authorization to proceed with the project in October or November, but construction is expected to begin during the offseason.

A $10 million project to upgrade the scoreboard at Spartan Stadium was recently completed in time for the start of the football season on Aug. 31, so the Spartans are making incremental changes to put them on the same level as other programs in the Big Ten.

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