For the past few years it has seemed as though there is some sort of construction underway everywhere you turn on Texas A&M campus. A big chunk of that construction, in terms of surface area as well as longevity, has been the Texas A&M Student Recreation Center.

The ‘Rec’ has been under renovation since March of 2014, and when completed, the $54 million renovation will produce 56,000 square feet of renovated space and 113,000 square feet of new construction.

When the project initially began, the date of completion was hoped to be December, 2015, but due to a number of factors, the date has been pushed back.

Senior Associate Director of Rec Sports, Rick Hall, is in charge of keeping the public informed on where the renovation stands. With inclement weather in recent weeks, Hall said the progress of the construction has taken a hit.

“Unfortunately, it has been nearly impossible for the construction staff to make up for the lost time due to the past inclement weather,” Hall said. “They are doing everything they can to make up time, working 6-7 days a week and sometimes almost 12 hours a day. Also, due to the recent improvement of weather, the team has been able to move forward and bring on enough staff to increase the pace of the project.”

Hall said at this point in the construction stage, it’s in the best interest of the Rec’s development to be unaffected by weather, whereas once the project reaches a certain benchmark, weather will play no role.  

“Weather will affect everything until you’re ‘dried in,’” Hall said. “So certainly, we are very close to getting the basement floor of the weight room completed, but bad weather impacted the completion last week and will impact it again if we ever get extensive, heavy rains that last multiple days.”

Regardless of when the construction is wrapped up at the Rec center, the finished product will be nothing short of impressive. In what is the first major renovation to the student recreation facility since 1995, the venue will increase in size by 25 percent to match the increase in student population.
At the end of the day, after all of the rain and delays, the completion date that was was once hoped to be December 2015 is now estimated to be mid-March of 2016.