Tomorrow’s graduation ceremonies at Chadron State College will mark a milestone of sorts: it will likely be the last one in the Armstrong Building gymnasium.

Work is already underway on a multi-million dollar upgrade and expansion of the Armstrong complex to the south that will include a new and larger Events Center Arena that will be the future home of CSC basketball and graduation.

College Vice President of Administration and Finance Dale Grant says the end of spring classes and graduation means the contractor can start working on the area south of the gym.

“I expect about 50% construction documents about a week from now, so we should really be getting into a place where we can start getting subcontractor bids and you’ll start to see some things outside the building that will be pretty evident to anybody.”

Grant says parking lot immediately south of the gym should be gone and initial construction underway within the next two weeks.

“We’re hoping that during the week of the 13th we’ll start to get fencing across that south parking lot and getting more trailers moved in there and starting to make a mess of things.”

Work on the project through the winter and spring has focused on converting the Armstrong pool into the athletic department’s new weight room.  Grant says a key part of the process has been filling in the pool in such a way that the new floor will be strong enough to handle a weight room.

“The foam’s in the pool and we’re close to pouring the concrete cap on it. We’re also doing some grout injection around the pool area to stiff up those footings for the additional weight, so things are moving along nicely.”

The events center will likely not be completed in time for next year’s spring commencement, but is expected to be ready for the 2014-2015 basketball season.

Meanwhile, work continues to move forward on the Coffee Pavilion…the first phase of the new Rangeland Complex going up east of the Burhiser Building. Grant says progress has been slowed the past couple weeks by snow and wet ground, but more of the steel work is ready to go.

“If you drive by there, you’ll see that most of the steel is in the air on the side walls on the south side and north side of it. The hope at our progress meeting yesterday (Thursday) was that some of the overhead steel could be put in place today (Friday).

That wet ground should delay work on the Rangeland Complex is ironic because during the earthwork phase, the soil was so dry that water had to be worked into it to meet compaction specifications.