The opening of Half Acre Gym is delayed again.
Due to construction setbacks, Half Acre will not be completed for four months. The new anticipated completion date is October 31, 2015.
UW Trustee Mike Massie said the delays are the result of resource scarcity and design problems. Massie also said there are many construction projects taking place in Wyoming, making labor a dwindling resource statewide.
“The completion date will be delayed by a few months. That’s the bad news,” Massie said. “But the good news is that the gym will be completed as envisioned and will be a benefit to campus for decades to come.”
Cayde O’Brien, marketing director at Groathouse Construction, Inc. and contractor for the Half Acre project, said design issues are common when renovating older buildings.
“It had to do with the drawings; it happens so often in older buildings,” O’Brien said. “You open walls up and you find things that you didn’t know were there.”
O’Brien said making a decision on how to handle these situations can be slow going, as it usually requires a meeting of all the key players.
“Getting everyone together can be hard,” she said.
O’Brien said people as well as materials are in scant supply for construction in general. With the number of large projects underway in Wyoming, getting quality contractors is a problem.
“When getting really big projects that are not a typical size for Wyoming, often in construction you have to pull in contractors from out of state to handle the magnitude,” she said. “Construction is just blowing up right now.”
