In 2006 the State authorized a $24,950,000 capital project completely to renovate the 1959 Brehm Animal Sciences Building (113,000 square feet) on the agriculture campus and to raze and rebuild the connected McLeod Hall (36,000 square feet), making an Animal Science and Food Sciences Complex. McLeod was razed in 2008. Architects for the project were the Lewis Group and Studio 4 Design. Storm damage seriously affected the progress of the project, which was not completed until 2013. As completed, the 150,000-square-foot complex contained 28 research and teaching laboratories, 60 offices, eight classrooms, a 148-seat auditorium, and a 900-seat arena.
The 1951 McLeod Food Technology Building designed by Barber and McMurry was completed in 1951 at a cost of $538,000. The facility was touted as unique on a university campus—having complete locker-plant operations management of frozen foods. Courses were taught in areas such as slaughtering, poultry by-products, sanitation, and industrial food fermentation processing. Professors Bernadine Meyer and Ruth Buckley of the College of Home Economics developed research inquiries that were carried out in the especially equipped cooking and organoleptic laboratory of the building.
In 1970 the board of trustees named the building for Dr. John Hayne McLeod, who served sequentially as vice director, acting director, and director of the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Agricultural Extension Service; and dean of the College of Agriculture from 1948 to 1957. He served UT for 36 years before his retirement in 1957. Following his retirement, he served four years in the UT program in India.