Mild winter helps performance complex construction stay on track

Rarely did the construction crews working on Purdue's $65-million performance complex need to take extended breaks this winter.

And that was good news: The project remains on schedule to open in August.

“We were concerned early on that it’s a pretty fast track and if we got a significant amount of bad weather in the winter that it could really impact us negatively. We never dreamed we’d have the kind of winter we’ve had. It’s been so beneficial to us,” Purdue's senior associate athletics director for facilities Steve Simmerman said last week. “They’ve been able to continue to work almost on a daily, regular routine schedule that I think we’ve all been amazed.

"We’ve only had maybe one week when we had so much wet weather that people sort of had to knock off for a week. So we’ve been very lucky in that respect. They really, really made a lot of progress through the winter, and they feel like they’re in really good shape right now."

The building certainly is taking shape.