Mammoth.
That's a word that springs to mind when first-time visitors approach the University Wellness and Parks Multipurpose Recreation Center and get an eyeful of the facility Jefferson City and Lincoln University, their residents and students will share when completed and opened on or about Jan. 30.
The members of the Parks and Recreation Commission and the City Council, Lincoln officials, with staff and a handful of other interested players hiked through the inside and marched around the outside of the three-level, 80,000-square-foot landmark-in-the-making Wednesday night.
The imposing girth of the center notwithstanding, Parks Commissioner Bll Plank's word for the center was "beautiful."
He was struck with the size and excited by the prospects of a public unveiling of the finished facility within 100 days or so.
"The interior is all dry and work can now move along in there pretty quickly while the roof, sides, parking lots, sidewalks, floors and other areas get the concrete which bring things to completion," Plank said. "The progress is very obvious this month."
If the weather co-operates, he said, and it appears there's a good chance that is going to happen, the anticipated Jan. 30 opening ceremony's "substantial completion date" will become a reality. Architects Alliance Inc. - led by Seth Evans, Larry Brandhorst and Cary Gampher - has been operating with 30 bad weather days built-in to the construction calendar, now a year in the process. The project is still on schedule, the design team said.
Unlike Plank, Parks Commissioner Denise Chapel was hard-pressed to ascribe a solitary word to the new wellness center. She's full of laudatory descriptors.
In a sentence, though, she says, "It is exciting to imagine the great things I know now are going to happen inside this building, but even more exciting to think about the wonderful activities we'll see happening here in future years, things we don't even know about now."
She has fond memories of her sons, Nimrod, 8, and Bryant, 4, reminding her when she was on site "turning dirt," or when the steel skeleton first appeared or when windows emerged in the walls.
"I'm so happy to be part of something that is going to be so impactful not just on my family but the whole community as well," Chapel says. "We spend a lot of our time visiting St. Louis, Kansas City and Springfield. When this center is completed, it will be our turn for people from those places to come to us, for us to showcase all that Jefferson City is and has to offer."
Plank said the center was all which had been envisioned and all that had been promised. "I'm excited for the ribbon-cutting, which is probably only another 100 days ahead of us, weather permitting," he said.
The center is the product of a memorandum of understanding between the Jefferson City Park Commission and Lincoln University, defining the sharing of financing, space. usage, amenities and all manner of details soon to pass from project paper to brick and mortar reality, Plank and Chapel said.
It now dominates the east side of Lafayette Street, between Jefferson City High School and Lincoln's Dwight Reed Stadium.
The 79,999 square feet include 12,733 in a basement dedicated to Lincoln athletics, 45,333 on the main floor and another 21,933 on the second floor.
The first floor includes four full-size basketball courts or six volleyball courts. The second floor will offer a fitness center, meeting and class rooms, as well as an elevated walking track. The design and build concept allows for future expansion, predicated on growth in usage.
Plans are for the center to be open virtually year-round, save a holiday here and there, from 6 a.m.-10 p.m. on most days. Tbere will be drop-in times for those who just want to shoot around in an open gym environment.
Chapel noted, "This is a special building. It is going to change the culture of our community. It truly is a Jefferson City-Lincoln collaboration which will create a culture will spread outide these doors throughout all the corners of our town."
Previous coverage:
Parks may not need city loan for Wellness Center (Aug. 7, 2016)
First look at planned wellness center (Feb. 19, 2016)
Commission: Programming discussions for Wellness Center will begin "soon' (Jan. 31, 2016)
Local contractor wins Wellness Center contract (Dec. 16, 2015)