University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban will help fund a new children's center in Tuscaloosa with gifts totaling $1.25 million, officials announced Friday.
The Tuscaloosa News reported that Saban and his wife Terry are making a $1 million donation for what will become the Saban Center, and Saban's private foundation, Nick's Kids, will donate another $250,000.
The more than 100,000-square-foot complex will be located in the existing Tuscaloosa News building near downtown. It will be updated as a home to the Tuscaloosa Public Library, a hands-on children's museum and the Tuscaloosa Children's Theater.
The center, Saban said at a luncheon, will become "a hub for a lot of educational matters."
City leaders voted to buy the newspaper building for nearly $8 million in October. It is located downtown above the Black Warrior River.