It isn’t taking long for construction projects to hit high gear at Allen Community College.
The ACC gymnasium, crammed with graduates and their families Saturday, looked far different two days later as work crews began removing the gym’s aging bleachers.
The bleachers — original from when the college opened 55 years ago, will be replaced with newer seating, while the gym floor will be sanded down and resurfaced.
The resurfaced court will be rechristened “Neal Crane Court” in honor of the long-time men’s basketball coach, and father of current women’s coach Leslie Crane.
College trustees formally approved the name change at Tuesday’s meeting.
Meanwhile, workers already have replaced the scoreboard and and have begun erecting light poles around the ACC softball diamond.
On top of that, the parking lot will soon have additional speed bumps and large planters on the sidewalk peninsulas in the campus parking lot as further methods to cut down on speeding students (and some employees).
BUT WHAT caught college trustees’ attention most Tuesday was an update from Kara Wheeler, acting vice president of finance and operations, on plans for a complete redesign of the Iola campus’s heating and cooling systems.
The college is replacing its old 2-pipe system with a 4-pipe system, one of several recommendations from a facilities study completed last fall.
At the time, engineers projected such a redesign would take as many as three years and cost up to $5.6 million to complete.
But that all changed at Tuesday’s meeting.
Wheeler said Allen’s maintenance staff was able to handle repairs to chillers within the system in-house.
That single step likely pared at least one year off the project timeline, Wheeler said.
Then came a notification from Millig Design Group of Lenexa. Representatives from that company said the replacement could be done in a single year, and at a price as much as $2 million below what had been forecast.
Wheeler stressed the college is still in the fact-finding stage of learning about Millig’s proposal. She invited trustees to attend an upcoming presentation from the company, which will be on campus later this month Trustee Corey Schinstock will join Wheeler, plant operations director Ryan Sigg and others from ACC’s administrative team.
“We’re very intrigued,” Wheeler said.
