A progress report on the Lafayette County Business Complex and Arena was presented during Monday morning’s meeting of the Lafayette County Board of Supervisors.

Bryan Ellis of Innovative Construction Management, the firm tasked with managing the project, stood before the board and gave the latest details of the 330-day project.

“The day this report was written, we were 156 days remaining on a 330-day project, giving us 47 percent completion calendar days-wise,” Ellis said. “We have experienced 17 rain days throughout the project, and to date we have zero awarded to the contractors – no time expenses so far.”

There is a light at the end of the tunnel for the project, which Board President Jeff Busby said has been in the works for more than five years. So far, workers have hit their milestones successfully, Ellis said.

On the business complex, Ellis explained that structural steel is the most recent milestone met, followed closely by Alternate One, the arena’s practice area.

“The next milestone on both will be conditioned air, which will turn loose our millworks, cabinets and so on and so forth on the business center,” Ellis said. “In the arena, the next milestone is metal framing at the concession stand area, and then we’ll have all the metal framework done there.”

Roofing for the buildings in the business complex, as well as the arena, was completed on Sept. 1. The next part of the project, which Ellis described as “critical path,” is installing brick veneer on the three buildings in the complex and getting curb and gutter, soil, cement and asphalt work done before cold weather hits.

Interior framing was completed on the county extension office, which is part of the arena project, on Sept. 14, and exterior site paving began on Sept. 11, Ellis said.

Ellis also presented four change order requests, or CORs, on behalf of Century Construction.

“One part is unsuitable soil. The geotechnical report showed some soils that were unsuitable for the foundations of the building,” he said. These two reports were in the Southwest corner of Building 1 and the Northeast corner of Building 4, so it spanned between the two buildings.”

The other CORs involved the land spanning in between Buildings 1 and 4, small changes to a storm drain invert and transformer pads.

The business center and multipurpose arena will be located off County Road 406, on 50 of 160 acres owned by the county. A portion of the remaining land will be leased to Lafayette County School District, to construct a new elementary school.

The completion date for both the business complex and arena projects is set for March 5, 2019.