A state-of-the-art facility named in honor of former president Dr. Royce Money and his wife, Pam
By this humble blogger’s count, the Royce and Pam Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center features 107 exterior-facing windows (give or take a few dozen, depending on what you consider a window versus a mere pane of glass), most of them on the second floor.
Here’s a sneak peek at what Abilene Christian University will look like through these glass portals when students, faculty and staff begin using the facility next semester.
View from the jogging trail, looking northeast over the leisure pool.
Piece by piece, the Royce and Pam Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center is taking shape, inside and out.
Paint is on the walls in parts of the new facility, meaning that completion is not far behind in several key areas, including the Abilene Christian University Medical and Counseling Care Center. Read on for more updates and photos.
Over the past week, crews have been installing glass windows surrounding the second floor of the Royce and Pam Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center on the Abilene Christian University campus. The windows have only been installed on the south side of the building thus far. Each section of the exterior is in a different phase of the general steel-fireproofing-drywall-waterproofing-brick-windows process. More photos after the jump.
Construction of Moody Coliseum and the adjacent Gibson Center seen from the air.
The construction of the Royce and Pam Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center is of course not the first time the area of campus north of the central mall has seen a major construction project. In 1968, crews built Moody Coliseum and the Gibson Health and Physical Education Center.
Dr. Kerri Hart — whose father, as we’ve mentioned, was chair of the Exercise Science and Health Department at the time — has provided some photos of the construction Abilene Christian University experienced 43 years ago:
Sun streams through full-length windows overlooking the new leisure pool.
Photographer Steve Butman also toured the Royce and Pam Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center this month. Here are some of his photos of the work as it progresses.
The outline of the new leisure pool is visible beneath the towering framework of the facility's east-facing window.
Brick continues to overlay the fireproofing, drywall and waterproofing that turned the new student wellness center’s bones and skin first gray then yellow then black, but the internal work has remained largely hidden from view — until now.
Inside the Royce and Pam Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center, the outlines of a new leisure pool are in place, the concrete floor has been poured for the new jogging track, and the offices for the renamed Center for Counseling and Medical Care have taken shape.
Likewise, the reconfiguration of the original classrooms and faculty and athletics offices in Abilene Christian University’s original Gibson Center is no longer left to the imagination.
Follow the jump to see more photos and updates about the construction, now a little more than five months away from completion, and click on the thumbnails to see larger versions of the photos.
Crews have begun installing yellow sheetrock over the fireproofed steel beams of the center's southwest corner.
The Feb. 1 snowstorm, which shut down most of Abilene for four days, had its affects on the Royce and Pam Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center, as well.
Work on the facility was set back four days because of the icy conditions, pushing the projected opening into the first week of September, said Dr. Jean-Noel Thompson, vice president and dean of Student Life.
“Our goal is to have the certificate of occupancy in mid August,” Thompson said. “In terms of moving in for a turn-key opening, we’re looking at the end of August or the first week of September.”
The original completion date in ACU’s contract with the site’s contractors was Aug. 1, with leeway built in for weather delays to push that deeper into the summer. Thus far, weather — including this month’s historic ice, snow and bitter cold — has delayed the project between nine and 13 days, Thompson said.
With warmer, sunnier days here again, construction has resumed its seemingly frenetic pace. Crews continue to erect steel beams all over the facility in hopes of placing the last beam before the end of the month. Here is a brief update on where construction stands as of Wednesday:
Northwest corner
Steel framing has begun forming the facility’s medical space, with fireproofing materials following shortly behind. Work on cast stone and brick continues in this area, which remains the furthest along — at least by appearances from the exterior.
Southwest corner
Work continues on installing bricks and cast stone, and the second floor, which includes the elevated running track, continues to take shape.
Crews continue to erect steel framing in this area.
Steel framing continues to go up here, capping with the placement Friday of the top-most beam in the facility, the reason for tomorrow’s topping out ceremony. Crews continue to cover the steel with fireproofing material, the grayish white substance that now covers many of the beams visible at the site. Structural concrete for the second floor will soon be poured, and crews have begun installing drywall in what will be the facility’s classrooms and faculty/staff offices.
Northeast corner
Steel is going up in this area, as well, with roof installation to begin shortly.
The beam early this afternoon. The underside had already been covered with the signatures of students, faculty and staff.
ACU’s students, faculty and staff had the rare opportunity Friday to make their mark — literally — on the new Royce and Pam Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center.
One perhaps little-known tradition for major construction projects is the “topping out” ceremony, the moment when the topmost piece of steel in a new facility is lifted into place. That day is coming soon, perhaps as early as next week, for the center.
Most ceremonies include placing a tree on top of the beam for a short while before planting it on the grounds of the new building. ACU plans to do that, as well, but added its own twist to the tradition this morning, when the steel beam was painted purple, brought onto campus, chained to a tree and left for students to sign however they saw fit.
Mark Lewis, assistant dean for Spiritual Life and Chapel programs, told students during Chapel that immediately afterward, they could immortalize their names, doodles, artwork, inspirational quotes or Scripture verses on the purple-painted steel.
Clint Coulter, junior exercise and sports science major from Celina, and his fiancée, Briana Sastre, junior psychology major from Carrollton, were the first students to sign the beam.
The immortalization will be mostly symbolic. As Physical Resources Director Scot Colley noted shortly before students swarmed the steel, it will be coated with gray fireproofing material, then placed at the very top of the structure and covered with drywall, brick and other materials. That knowledge didn’t stop Colley himself and several of his colleagues, including this blogger, from signing their names before Chapel ended.
Clint Coulter, junior exercise and sports science major from Celina, and his fiancée, Briana Sastre, junior psychology major from Carrollton, were the first students to discover the surprisingly unassuming piece of steel as it lay chained to a tree in the mall between Moody Coliseum and the GATA Fountain. Fittingly, Coulter will work in the center once it opens in the fall.
Within seconds, dozens of students were swarming the steel, and less than two hours later, signatures covered all eight surfaces of the I-beam, many of them simple names, but also social club braggadocio, messages to friends, even a duck.
Students — a trickle now, rather than a flood — continue to stop and add their names, append comments to others’ and continue a sort of campus conversation, one soon to be preserved for decades to come.
ACU's chancellor and the new facility's namesake, Dr. Royce Money, signs the beam.
It wasn't long before students made their permanent mark on the new facility.
The east-facing side of the building.
We will be posting updates on the construction of the Royce and Pam Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center at least biweekly beginning with today’s post. This will be one of several regular blog features we will roll out in the coming month.
Brickwork on the northwest corner of the center, future home of the Medical and Counseling Center for Care.
Northwest corner
Crews are installing brick on the outer wall (at right) and erecting drywall in what will become the new home of the ACU Counseling Center. The Medical Clinic will begin to take shape as crews will soon begin erecting the steel framing for that area.
Southwest corner
The southwest corner of the site, including brick on the exterior wall of the first floor and steel surrounding the future track on the second.
Walls have been erected over the new basketball gym, and crews are installing the sprinkler system for the facility. On the second floor, portions of the running track have been poured.
Brick has also begun going up along the southwest side of the building that faces the campus mall. The outward appearance of the facility — especially the overhang that will cover a sidewalk along the center’s perimeter, similar to the south side of the Hunter Welcome Center — is becoming clearer.
The main entrance and lobby of the SRWC will be in this area, which also includes the intramural offices and the juice bar. The cement floor has been poured, and crews have begun erecting the steel frame for the welcome area.
Further inside the building, the cardio/weight floor also has been poured, with crews erecting steel framing there, as well.
The scaffolding provides an outline of what will become a giant wall of glass facing east. The skeleton of the center's southeast corner of the center in the background.
Perhaps the most anticipated part of the Student Recreation and Wellness Center is the entirely new east-central face, which will include the new leisure pool and bouldering wall, as well as new classrooms, faculty and staff offices.
The construction is also the most dynamic here, as scaffolding rings what will be a massive, curving glass wall separating the new pool from an outdoor patio. The top of the building here will be the highest point on the entire structure, and crews are erecting steel in this area, as well.
The northeast corner of the center, which will feature newly constructed lockers and showers.
The new pool has taken shape, as its concrete walls have been poured. The original pool is being renovated, and it will be used for competition and training.
Northeast corner
Crews are installing electrical lines and plumbing, as well as erecting walls in this area.
Photos by Steve Butman (east face, northwest corner) and Paul A. Anthony (southwest and northeast corners).
A worker helps a crane guide a beam into place along the southeast wall of the new center, near Chapel on the Hill.
Construction on the Royce and Pam Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center continues to provide a striking alteration to the campus skyline. A crane working on placing beams onto the $21 million facility can be seen from miles away, and the expansion of the Gibson Health and Physical Education Center’s old footprint is now readily visible.
With so much activity taking place on the physical site, it only makes sense for activity to resume in earnest on this virtual home of the center. This blog will resume its weekly (and, we hope, more frequently than that) updates about the center but expand them to include not just progress on the construction, but also progress on the numerous other facets involved in opening a new facility. These include:
We hope this blog will be a way for the building’s donors and prospective donors to see how well their money is being invested, as well as a way for those who eagerly anticipate using the facility to get something of a sneak peek as decisions are made and policies finalized heading toward the projected August 2011 opening.