ENID — Initial groundwork has been completed and crews have begun working to create the concrete base for the event center that is the centerpiece of Enid Renaissance Project.
Bob Meyers, of Carter and Associates, project engineers, said the first concrete footings were placed last week. Placing of plumbing, electrical conduit and other items that go below the slab, out of view, will be done before concrete is poured.
According to the architectural plans, the event center will be about 74,000 square feet in actual building area. Total construction time for the event center is 444 days. Key Construction, of Tulsa, is the contractor.
Crews have spent a lot of time preparing the groundwork to make sure it was properly done and correctly compacted, Meyers said, before they will start work on the cement slab.
Compacting the groundwork is critical, and Envirotech monitors the work as it goes. When the dirt work is tested and passes, work proceeds to the next element. Meyers said it is critical to construction of the building to have the pad done properly, so the general contractor has a good base to work from.
“They dig down for footing, in some cases down to the original soil,” Meyers said.
The next step in the proCess is getting the foundation built, and following that the steel structure will be built. That is scheduled around the first of March; however, if weather patterns continue as they have been this year, it could happen earlier, he said.
City Manager Eric Benson said he is excited to see real evidence of the city’s willingness to invest in itself. He said it will be a big issue for the city, because Enid’s biggest negative relates to quality-of-life issues.
“If we do something like this, we will have continued growth,” Benson said. “We have retail interests, new businesses coming here and they are all talking about the same thing, the new things going on in Enid that nobody else is doing.”
Benson said he believes the work will pay dividends in many more areas than people can see. He said the event center is more than a building, but a sign of Enid’s willingness to compete in the market.
“I am truly, truly excited. This is about all of us,” Benson said. “I’m excited about the future of Enid. Now we can see the outline of things and say wow, that’s going to be a big building. But until it’s laid out, you don’t realize just what it is.”
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