Mustang Health and Wellness Center is finally open more than two months later than anticipated after workers hammered out problems with a required elevator that was left out of the facility's original plans.
Residents are invited to tour the facility from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday and stay for a ribbon cutting celebration. The center is located south of the Mustang High School gym.
MHS basketball players were the first students to hit the center's court for practice after inspectors granted Mustang an occupancy permit on Oct. 21.
Athletic Director Chuck Bailey said he's bringing in teams gradually. Cross country runners have already started using the elevated track, and weight training and physical education classes are scheduled to use the facility in the next few weeks. Cheerleaders and the pom squad will also move practices to the center.
“We wanted to learn our way around the building a little bit before we bring in the next group,” he said.
Long journey
Mustang schools have more than 75 athletic teams vying to practice in five secondary school gymnasiums. Many students get up before sunrise to go to practice, and other teams practiced late into the night just to be able to use a gymnasium.
Former Athletic Director Mike Clark said such long days are hard on students and affected not only their chances to excel at their sport but also their schoolwork. Some students couldn't participate in sports because their parents couldn't bring them to early morning or late evening practices.
In 2007, school officials envisioned the Health and Wellness Center as a practice facility that would relieve some of these problems. Voters approved $3.352 million for the project in a $13 million bond package approved in April 2007.
The 45,000-square-foot, two-story facility's construction has faced obstacles due to necessary elements that were left out of the original plans. Also due to these oversights, the building's cost has come in over its initial budget at about $3.685 million.
In January 2008, Mustang School Board members approved a $3.086 million bid from Gail Armstrong Construction to construct the facility, which was designed by Architects In Partnership. At that time officials passed over a $79,000 alternate bid to install an elevator.
Mustang's former bond projects director left the district for a position in Oklahoma City in summer 2008, and Jeff Woodard joined the staff in October 2008.
In his first week on the job, Woodard met with the state fire marshal inspector for the center's 50-percent completion inspection. The inspector told him if the district did not add the elevator, he would put the brakes on the project. The elevator is necessary meet fire codes and Americans with Disabilities Act standards. The building also needed a fire access lane, a 10-space parking lot with four handicapped spaces and additional sidewalks to comply with law.
“Without a letter of intent, we couldn't go forward on construction of that building,” Woodard told school board members last November.
The new bid for the elevator came in almost $8,000 higher, at $87,860. Installation of the elevator was set to start in July, but because the elevator was left out of the initial plans, Woodard said they encountered more problems. One stumbling block was ordinances that require the elevator operation room to be air conditioned and ventilated, and contractors had to make adjustments.
“Elevator issues really all stem from the late bid of adding the elevator to the facility,” he said. “Late arrival to poor planning of detail specifications up front have caused 75 percent of the issues.”
'State of the art'
Now that the center is open, Woodard said he has no further concerns for the building and called the practice facility state of the art. School officials from other districts have toured the center, he said, and are considering constructing similar projects.
The Health and Wellness Center has two full-size basketball courts with goals that can be lowered to nine feet, which Bailey said will allow younger students or wheel-chair bound students to practice at the facility. The courts can be separated with a long curtain, that helps block sound between the practices as well as balls.
The west third of the facility has 30 yards of artificial turf, which gives football players and other athletes a place to practice drills in the off season or in inclement weather. Cheerleaders will also practice on mats spread across the turf, and their gear will be stored in the center. Bailey said cheer doesn't really have a good place to store their mats now.
The facility is ringed by an elevated track on the second-story. The second floor also contains a large practice floor on the west end, which will be used by pom dancers, and a cardiovascular and weight-training equipment area on the east end.
Bailey said the district bought top-notch treadmills, exercise bikes and elliptical machines as well as weight-training machines and free weights.
“It should hold up for a good long time,” he said.
The facility also contains a 500- square foot athletic trainer's facility with new equipment. Bailey said this will be a temporary home. Once the football fieldhouse addition is completed in August, the equipment will be moved to the more centralized location. Before, athletic trainers worked out of a cramped office at the MHS gym.
The building also contains boy's and girl's locker rooms, with lockers that will be checked out for single day use only, depending on which sports are practicing in the facility.
For the students
First and foremost, Bailey said the Health and Wellness Center is for MHS athletes, and the public will be granted very limited access. It will not be open for patrons to use the walking track, and he said the school district did not build the facility to compete with the city's recreation center in Town Center.
Because of the elevated walking track and exercise equipment, he said no one age 12 or younger can use the second floor facilities due to liability. A small child could slide between or beneath the railing and fall, he said.
The center is also not designed to become a home for games or public events. Bailey said initial plans for additional bathrooms and offices on the west side of the building were scrapped as a cost-cutting measure, and now the building has two public restrooms.
There are other restrooms inside the locker rooms, but he said those are not accessible to the public.
“If my daughter is in there getting dressed, and you just walk in there as a patron, that's a lawsuit,” he said.
The facility also does not have seating to accommodate games, nor does it have a public announcement system. Adding a PA system for the facility could cost another $50,000, he said.
If temperatures top 100 degrees, Bailey said some summer volleyball games and other events could be moved from the steamy MHS gym to the air-conditioned practice facility. During extremely hot weather, he said holding events in the gym becomes a safety concern.
“We are going to try to accommodate volleyball and other sports that are playing there when it is so hot,” he said. “We are going to take care of our kids.”