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Previous performance complex updates ($): Near maximum work force engaged in crunch time | Mild winter helps progress, on track in spring | Complex taking shape in November | Performance complex on schedule in mid-June 2016 | Initial stages started on facility
Semis were parked illegally in the F lot Monday morning.
But there was little choice: Furniture needed to be moved into the football performance complex, one of the final steps of the project that's still on target to be occupied by Purdue's football personnel in late August, the week before the season opener.
Most of that furniture was being shuttled up to the third floor where the coaches’ offices and team meeting rooms are. It’s the area that’s farthest along in the process — the construction crew basically did the work from the top down in the building — and already has most of the final finish painting and two-thirds of the offices carpeted, Purdue associate athletic director for facilities Steve Simmerman said.
The first floor and the second level are still in the final drywall, wall finish and floor finishing stages, though they’re progressing nearly in unison, Simmerman said.
“The progress has really been astounding, particularly on the third floor of the building,” Simmerman said. “There is a little more specialty on the lower level because you’ve got locker room, sports medicine and weight room, which in a technical sense, has more equipment installation, more specific things that have to be noted, checked and commissioned, so to speak, relative to equipment operation and what’s required there. So they do lag a little behind third floor but not enough to the extent that we feel like that’d be a delay for anything.
“So we fully expect to start moving furniture in Monday, and our move-in date for football players into the locker room and coaches into the third floor area remains to be that weekend of Aug. 25.”
The locker room is starting to not only take shape but showcase some character with dynamic design features being installed. There’s a lit motion ‘P’ on the ceiling, which is a perforated metal. LED lights are integrated in all the lockers, which also have dataports and are individually ventilated to keep practice gear dried out and avoiding what Simmerman called “the traditional locker room smell.” Soon, the 9x12 video screen at one end of the room will be installed, cabled and wired. Other TV monitors will be mounted throughout the space, and a significant sound system installed.
The front lobby likely will be not finished by the time the building should be open to the public during the home opener on Sept. 8, Simmerman said, lacking museum-type elements that the space ultimately will include. But it won’t look unfinished, Simmerman said.
On the outside of the building, there was a hitch on the exterior covering panels — they needed to be re-ordered due to a sizing hiccup — but that time has been made up, Simmerman said. The weight room exterior is being covered by black panels, as is some of the side of the building, while toward the roof are gold-plated panels. That look was really starting to come together Monday with workers applying the panels outside the weight room.
But that’s one of the subgroups that’s been working seven days a week on the project, too, making sure it stays on target. As many as 100 workers are often on site and have been for the last month or so.
“This project isn’t any different than any other project I’ve done. You work on the project, work on the project, you know what the end date is, and the closer you get to the end date and the more you look at the sheer quantity of work that has to be done, you’re looking at it like, ‘Oh my gosh, can they really get this done in the amount of time?’ ” Simmerman said. “But it’s the value of having quality contractors, experienced designers and contractors working on the job. They know what it takes to finish it. They, too, know people are looking at it, going, ‘There’s an awful lot to get done yet.’ But they get the manpower, the resources they need. They, too, use quality subcontractors and people who are reliable. We have no reason to think there will be any delays on it.”
Because Mollenkopf is attached to the new complex, it’ll be getting a facelift, too. The current goldish stripe on the exterior of the building ultimately will be swapped for black, the bottom of the building that’s like a brown-metal panel will be a dark charcoal or black and the tinted windows will be replaced as well.
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