JSU downsizes high-profile projects
Aug. 13—JACKSONVILLE — Jacksonville State University has decided to scale back plans for the school's football stadium and proposed performing arts center.
Housing for students on the visitors' side of the stadium will no longer be included in the renovation, the school's senior vice president of finance and administration, Arlitha Harmon said during a speech at a local civic club. The expansion at the stadium, however, will include a new dining hall and Gamecock football offices, she added.
Meanwhile, the Randy Owen Center for the Performing Arts will be built closer to the recently acquired First Baptist Church of Jacksonville.
"The supply-chain issue and inflation meant we could no longer afford to build the facilities originally planned," Harmon told the Jacksonville Exchange Club on Thursday. "These happened in almost the same, exact instances, and then the opportunity to buy the church came up. One thing led to another. It all happened so quickly."
The updated plans reflect a financial prudence that's needed now, JSU President Don Killingsworth said.
"With construction costs continuing to rise due to inflation, the university has decided to scale back some of our capital improvement projects. We are currently drawing up new plans that are more fiscally conservative but accomplish the same goals," he said Friday afternoon.
Harmon, who has been at the JSU since March, said her job has been challenging. In recent years, JSU has had a dizzying set of challenges, such as changes in administration, the pandemic and the 2018 tornado, which did $100 million in damage to the campus facilities.
Harmon spoke at the same meeting with David Thompson, JSU's director of capital planning and facilities, where both discussed big changes to the JSU master plan. The tornado that hit JSU's campus changed many of those plans, they said, and latest development has changed them even more.
Harmon discussed the football stadium and the Randy Owens Center, and Thompson told of three others. — The JSU football stadium: The old press box on the north side of the stadium and some of the bleachers will be removed, which will decrease seating capacity. The stadium project was originally planned to hold 24,000 fans but will be reduced by at least 5,000. A standing-room-only space and overflow capacities are to be included in the renovations, which will accommodate events such as the annual Band Day. The project is set to begin in the spring of 2023, and the completion date will be around the fall of 2024. — The Randy Owen Center for the Performing Arts: Plans for the Marching Southerners Band to have practice space in the originally planned facility have changed. Instead of building practice space into the ROC, which was to be located on the site of the land beside the Houston Cole Library, the practice space will take place in the First Baptist Church, she said. The ROC will continue with its plans to construct a 1,000-seat, multi-tiered music performance center, only it will be built closer to the former church. The two facilities will connect, which will help the Southerners avoid exposing their instruments to rain. Fund-raising efforts are underway to raise $10 million to add to the $15 the state is allocating for the ROC.
Thompson spoke about new and former plans for the former Regional Medical Center Hospital in Jacksonville, which is to house the Health Professionals and Wellness Department. Added is to be a basic skills lab, an emergency room for JSU students (run by RMC) and the nursing school labs and classrooms, a total of 87,000 square feet.
"There will be a doctoral program for students studying respiratory therapy on the second floor of the hospital," Thompson said. "There will be four new, tiered classrooms built to accommodate 125 students in each, along with a student commons room, administration offices and a food service at the hospital. We want to get all the medical students in one building."
