By Kelsi Peace, Managing Editor

After the mid-December ground breaking, excavation at the Bob and Shirley Hunter Welcome Center site over Christmas Break prepped the site for building and laid a stable foundation, the director of physical resources said.

Director of Physical Resources Bob Neville said the final elements of infrastructure should be added this month. The next step will be to install a pipe from the McGlothlin Campus Center to a new line near the east end of the Onstead-Biblical Packer Building parking lot, where two parking lanes have been closed.

“There are spaces available,” Neville said. “They’re going to have to walk a little further.”

Aside from the parking lot closures, which should be paved over by Sing Song weekend in February, Neville said construction on the Welcome Center will do little to interrupt the campus.

The heat was shut off the weekend before classes began to connect the facility to the central system, and the previously closed ACU Drive has now re-opened.

Construction will require the gate between the tennis courts and University Park to close as the site is connected to electrical power.

Neville said he expects the closure to last through Monday.

By February, clear signs of construction – such as the beginning stages of the planned 57,000 square foot center, should be visible, Neville said, as the $14 million project continues to keep to its timeline.

“We’re real committed to these timelines for construction,” he said. “We feel like we’re going to be through with this in January [2009] before school begins.”

The project was initially slated for completion in 2008. ACU policy maintains that construction cannot begin until a project is fully funded; in May 2007, the project was $4.3 million short.

In the meantime, Neville said he expects little interruption to the community and no delays he can foresee.

“It’s a conversation you have to have constantly,” he said.

An official ground breaking will be held during Sing Song weekend.