Completion in sight for new arena, student center at Coastal Carolina University

CONWAY -- The new Student Recreation and Convocation Center at Coastal Carolina University is to be substantially complete by April 10, about four months behind the original completion date, according to the latest estimate.

The Greenwood-based construction company building what also will be the new home for the Chanticleer basketball teams, has been paying the university $1,000 a day in a late completion penalty since Dec. 26.

The basketball teams will have to wait until next season to move from Kimbel Arena to the new facility, but officials are hopeful that the construction will be complete so that summer orientation sessions and basketball camps will be able to use the space in early June.

If it is not completed for them to use, it won’t be an insurmountable problem, said Porter Medley, the university’s director of conference services. Other facilities are available that have been used in the past and will suffice this year as well, he said.

When construction began in June 2010, school officials had hoped it would be completed in time for a CCU basketball game with Louisiana State University last November, said Eddie Dyer, CCU’s executive vice president and chief operating officer.

That was before the original, Dec. 3 contract date for substantial completion, which was officially extended 23 days for allowable delays due to weather. When that time was up, the penalty fee kicked in, said Phillip Massey, project manager for the university.

There have been a series of problems Massey said, including materials that were not delivered when they were needed and subcontractors prematurely moved from work not yet completed to begin new jobs. But now the end is in sight, and officials are turning their attention to the building becoming a showcase for the university.

“It’s always nice to put them in something that really wows them,” Medley said of upcoming new student orientation sessions that will take place in the Convocation Center, which is located adjacent to the school’s freshman residence halls.

The 127,685-square-foot building is designed to blend in with the campus’ overall Georgian architecture, Massey said, while also being a statement of the future. Large windows and a long, soaring skylight over a central concourse will allow light in to bounce throughout the building’s light-colored interior, contributing to lower energy costs and a higher LEED rating, which categorizes environmental-friendly construction practices.

The state requires the building to be built to LEED silver ratings, but Massey believes it will come out above that.

“We have enough, we think, to make LEED gold,” he said.

Some rooms in the building will have sensors that will automatically turn lights on when someone enters them and turn them off if they have been unoccupied for several minutes. Heating and air conditioning systems will use the latest energy-saving techniques, with the latter having a closed-loop chilling system with water cooled for the all air conditioning systems in one place, used as needed and then recirculated to the chilling facility at a lower temperature than outside water would have. That means chillers will have to work less to get the water ready for recirculation.

One side of the building will be devoted to student recreational facilities, with weight and cardio equipment, an indoor track and a 38-foot high climbing wall.

The other will hold the gymnasium with its 3,250 seats for athletic contests.

The building is the first of a planned $237 million in new construction and renovation at the campus that is designed to ready the university for an anticipated enrollment of 12,500 students.

Also underway now are a $12 million academic/office building that’s to open in spring 2013, a Science 1 building that will open that summer and a library expansion. The state Budget and Control Board recently approved the hiring of an architect to design a new residence hall complex on land that’s currently undeveloped.

Much of the work is being funded through a special one-cent sales tax Horry County voters approved.

But the Convocation Center and other facilities – public safety, Jackson Student Center annex, tennis complex, among others – will be funded outside of the special sales tax revenue.

Medley said his office has scheduled a June 11 orientation for transfer students and the June 14-15 freshman orientation for Wheelwright Auditorium, but has put a hold on the new Student Recreation and Convocation Center should it be finished in time. Likewise, he said that men’s and women’s basketball camps will be held at the new center if possible.

If not, he said, “We still have Kimbel Arena and the small gym.”

Flooring still needs to be put down in the new Center, but base paint coats are being applied in some areas as well. The climbing wall, which has a steel structure with an exterior composite material that looks, and feels, like real rock, is covered with a plastic sheath on one side of the concourse area.

Once a substantial construction date is met, Massey said the construction company will then have 60 days to complete small items that are discovered during inspections and put on a punch list for completion.

“Everybody is hoping for the best,” Medley said.