Jeez, guys. For guys who know so much, you don't seem to actually know much at all.
First of all, our building is probably cheaper because we're not trying to build a freakin' masterpiece and we have existing space and resources not available at some other places. W&M is very much hampered by very specific archictectural designs that they have to adhere to and very little open space on which to build. If you've been to that stadium, you know it's like frickin' Hogwarts in there but w/ less parking. They have to rip out nearly as much as they have to put in. I can't speak for Coastal but I would be willing to bet they're trying to construct a 'showpiece' building much like JMU did several years ago. The upside is that it's very attractive but the downside is that it costs more. There's also the additional possible downside in that you can screw yourself like JMU did and have it look really nice but have little functional space so you end up having to make it larger and even more expensive to suit your needs. What we are building is little more than a steel and concrete box with a Jeffersonian exterior. We are also blessed to have a great deal of open ground and easy vehicle access to the site. The argument of x$/sq ft. also supposes only construction cost as opposed to completion costs. I know that there's at least an additional $1.8 mil budgeted to furnish the building and that's coming from pockets outside of the Williams family.
Secondly, -- I keep saying it and nobody listens -- disregard any plans or drawings you've ever seen of the facility. Nearly all of those were done anywhere from a year to 5 years before actual construction took place. The final product will
not look like the renditions that Bob Good keeps showing the Flames Club. Also, the building will be
larger -- not smaller -- than those drawings depict simply because it now has three floors instead of two. The weight room, which took up a lot of space on the ground floor, got bumped to the basement level and actually gave us enough extra space to work with that we could expand some things and actually reduce the size of the building's 'footprint'.
Thirdly, I am absolutely confident in the building's structure and reliabilty. You guys act like no other building anywhere outside of LU has problems. "The AC went out. The toilet was stopped up. Ooh, the windows don't open. Boohoohoo." Face the basic statistical facts, guys. In a building the size of DeMoss, stuff is going to happen. Also, I don't suppose it occurred to anyone that the AC gets periodically shut off in the summer for maintenance and repairs so that it doesn't end up shutting down during the semester when the bulk of the paying customers are here.
Trust me, if the new football facility comes crashing down one dark day in October, you'll know it happened because I will have stopped posting due to my being dead. Until then, y'all need to lighten up and grow up!
PS - For the record (again), in 2003, there was some structural steel donated top the program by a very well-meaning benefactor. That steel was trucked in and dropped off and it ended up stacked on the ground next to the shed beyond the north end zone for some time. As of now, it's gone and I have no idea what happened to it. I know for a fact that it is
not being used in the new building. I personally know the head sales guy whose company contracted the steel and, in my conversations w / him as well as the planners on our end, there was never any thought of actually using unknown untested steel that had been lying in the mud for 2 and a half years.
"I invite all the young champions on Liberty Mountain to come up and rub my woolly mustache."
- By olldflame