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Morgantown Construction Projects Press On, Including Football’s Puskar Center
May 15, 2020 09:00 AM | Football, Blog
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – While much of the country is beginning to come back to life, the construction industry never really stopped.
A quick drive around Morgantown reveals a number of massive projects ongoing, such as the Westridge Business and Retail Park located on the opposite side of Interstate 79 from the University Town Centre in Granville.
Across town, the nine-story, 150-bed tower that will make up the new Children's wing of the expanding WVU Medicine complex is rapidly taking form.On the other side of the Health Sciences complex, the finishing touches on another parking garage are being completed. This will provide a companion facility to the parking structure that was recently completed across Don Nehlen Drive from Milan Puskar Stadium.
And down the street, work continues on the $55 million Milan Puskar Center renovation project aimed at modernizing Mountaineer football's nearly 40-year-old facility.
When it is completed approximately 14 months from now, an additional 13,700 square feet will be added to the existing structure expanding it to nearly 86,000 square feet.
In early March, before the pandemic crisis hit the country, WVU Director of Athletics Shane Lyons said extensive renovation work on this facility was long, long overdue.
What was added over there in the past had been done in piecemeal fashion.
"You look back and you wish you could just completely start over instead of renovating it, but some pieces of the puzzle that were very, very good from the training room, the training table to the team area were already in place," Lyons said then.
"The things we are doing over there are more of a need than a want … they had to be done," Lyons added.
According to the Puskar Center Complex website that was established when the Climbing Higher campaign was officially announced in the summer of 2018, the project will impact all areas of Mountaineer football, including the team academic center, locker room, student-athletes' lounge, Hall of Traditions, equipment room, coaches' offices, team meeting rooms and visiting team facilities.
Some areas, such as the training room and training table areas, were part of the first phase of construction and have already been completed.
Relative to the pandemic crisis, there have been few positives that have come out of this - including severe budgetary issues as a result of the cancellation of the men's basketball postseason tournaments - but the Puskar Center renovation project has been able to press forward because funding for it was already in place.
Additionally, having the entire football staff working remotely for the last eight weeks has allowed construction work to progress uninterrupted.
"They've been able to work longer hours and they haven't had to work around our schedules," West Virginia coach Neal Brown said Wednesday morning.The front of the Puskar Center is now exposed with construction work visible from the outside. Large steel beams, which will encase the Hall of Traditions, are now in place and in the near future those areas will be completely enclosed.
Once that happens, work can progress uninterrupted rain or shine.
"Not only this phase, but the next phase, too, I think they are getting ahead on," Brown said. "They've begun the process of installing the video board. Again, they have more hours to work.
"I haven't been near the construction area in about 2 ½ weeks, but I'm planning to get there at the end of the week and have a look," he added. "This has been a positive because they've got more work done."
When it is completed, Lyons predicts Mountaineer football will have an office complex second to none anywhere.
"The quality of this is going to be as good as anybody's in the country, it just may be smaller from a square footage perspective," he concluded.
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