(Guthrie Center) At last Monday’s meeting the ACGC School Board approved a bid for construction of a new weight room to be added to the high school.
An expansion of the strength and conditioning facility that been in the works for over a year is now on the verge of getting started. Strength and Conditioning coach Cody Matthewson says, “It’s a new, two level facility that’s going to be attached to the school facing the west. It’s going to have some nice, natural lighting and windows. Hopefully it’ll have a nice logo if we decide to continue with that route and get it lit up at night. It’ll be overlooking all of our facilities to the west.”
The original cost estimate was $1.2 million. However, the lowest bid they received was $1.5 million, so they had to make some tweaks to the original plan. “We went with a pre-engineered building and that cut our cost and we saved some money on some little other players that the architect and the superintendent got all organized.”
Matthewson’s main concern was to have more space for the student athletes. It will be an 8,000 square foot facility and memberships will be sold for members of the public to access it. “It truly is a full community center if you really think about it. It’s just a great opportunity because we don’t have that here in Guthrie Center.”
Matthewson says a pre-construction meeting is scheduled for May 13 and it looks like they’ll start breaking ground sooner rather than later. Private funding is taking place to fill the new structure with equipment. They seek $125,000 and have already raised around $65,000.
Participation in strength and conditioning activity has quickly risen in the last couple of years and Matthewson views this as reward to the kids for their hard work. ”
The plan is for the facility to be finished by late October or early November.
