For a long time, there was a big hole in the ground. Just across the street from Beaver Stadium, a big muddy pit sulked in the wet, cold State College weather and collected rainwater and snow. The sign out front promised an “Academic/Athletic Convocation and Events Center,” but as the hole continued to play the rain barrel, it was hard to believe.
Now, almost two years after the cruel winter that so cursed its construction, The Bryce Jordan Center is in the final testing stages. The walls and roof are whole, the crouching steel skeleton, fleshed out with concrete and siding. And in January, after a month of working out the bugs, the center will host the Big Ten portion of Penn State’s basketball season and will be officially open.
It’s been a rough ride for the Jordan Center. Things seemed simple enough back in 1991, when private donations for the center began to arrive in $100,000 increments and Pennsylvania’s Department of General Services chose three architectural firms—State College’s John C. Haas Associates; Harrisburg’s Brinjac, Kambic Associates; and Atlanta’s Rosser Fabrap International—to work out the center’s design. Sure that the center would be ready for the 1994-95 basketball season, the university was blissfully unaware of the designs of fate and mother nature. Ground was broken and the hole took shape. Earlier test borings had shown that the construction would be challenging because of local geology—the site rested on unstable, easily dissolved limestone—but designers were sure they could handle it. Plus, they noted, the local geography granted them an advantage—easy parking. The site’s sloping hillside location would allow spectators to enter near Beaver Stadium, in front, while supply trucks came around the back, below the front-door ground level. Penn State’s $20 million fundraising drive was ahead of schedule, as was the ground testing and digging. The design work had taken a bit longer than expected, its inherent complexity and versatility pushing the opening back to September 1995, but no one feared. Then, in the summer of 1993, with the foundation wide open and ready for construction, bidding opened.
The estimate for the center’s cost was $53.8 million: $33.8 million supplied by the state, and the remaining $20 million supplied by Penn State’s private fundraising. But the bids, which came through on June 30, were millions of dollars above the budget allocations; the state Department of General Services (DGS) refused them all and ordered a rebid. Changes were made to the specifications and contracts were awarded to December 1993.
Contractual problems behind them, one of the worst winters ever to hit the Northeast cost the builders 70 days, pushing the center’s opening back even further. From January to March of l994, the ugly scar of the foundation clutched the winter snows and caused the single biggest delay of the project. But with the warming of spring and summer, the Nittany Valley’s floral growth was mirrored by the continued construction of the climbing steel superstructure.
One of the mildest winters in memory gave the crews several solid months of good working weather into 1995. As they completed more and more of the superstructure, the trailer village on the site’s northeast side grew proportionately; work proceeded at breakneck speed, often six days a week, while more subcontractors joined the project, further accelerating the process. By June, the roof was complete, providing confidence that the November deadline would be met despite anything mother nature could dish out. Yet other obstacles had to be overcome—in July, Lott Construction announced that it was having financial difficulties.
Lott’s insurer, Aetna, took responsibility for the project and contracted Gilbane Building Company to oversee the completion of general construction. Bob Howard, general manager of The Bryce Jordan Center, says that the changeover was very smooth: “We lost no workdays.” They increased their manpower at the time of the changeover, maintaining workers all the way up to Lott’s management personnel. “The people from Lott Construction knew the site better than anyone,” Howard says. “It was expertise you couldn’t buy.”
Bob Howard, who has spent 20 years in facility management and 15 in arena and civic center management, came to Penn State from his position as general manager of the 8,700-seat Augusta (Maine) Civic Center, having spent nine years before that as GM of the Savannah (Georgia) Civic Center. While Lott worked on building the center’s body, Howard breathed life into it. Since last October, he’s been hiring staff to run the building, beginning marketing and promotions, ordering equipment, developing a box office arrangement, setting up the physical plant and maintenance for the future, advising on construction, and trying to program events for the building.
While Penn State basketball will be the facility’s prime user, Howard notes that the center is designed to be multifunctional. Both men’s and women’s gymnastics can compete simultaneously on the main floor; which can, alternatively, be configured to support additional basketball practice courts or two volleyball courts. It’s well equipped for touring shows, such as circuses or ice shows, as well as for rock concerts, seating nearly 16,000. It can support “very large” banquets—up to 2,000 people—and house trade shows or conventions with 168 booths on the floor and 84 more in the annex, plus 6 plush conference rooms. “It’s an opportunity for major speakers and conferences,” says Howard, “as well as for graduations and other student activities.”
Many question whether a facility such as The Bryce Jordan Center is necessary, but Howard feels the need is definitely there. “Rec Hall sells out too easily for basketball games and concerts,” he says. “The demand for additional seating clearly exists.” Plus, as anyone who has ever tried to use Rec Hall’s jogging track or other facilities knows, basketball games, team practice, gymnastics meets, and other events often close off Rec Hall to the public, leaving recreational or fitness sportsters out of luck; with basketball gone, other activities will have more space and time. In addition to the Jordan Center’s main floor, the south annex provides three practice courts and 140 offices that will house the athletic department (save football), a department currently scattered across campus.
The Jordan Center does not merely have extra space, it has style, sporting creature comforts and advanced technology. The rigging system—the first of its kind in the United States—is state-of-the-art: its computer-controlled trusses move lights, curtains, and speakers to locations accurate to a ½ of an inch. The sound system has seven major systems: arena sound reinforcement, public address paging, communications, hearing-impaired support, concourse seating, portable and local conference room systems. “And the food, supplied by Penn State Catering,” smiles Howard, “will be awfully good.” Two on-site kitchens will service banquets and conferences, as well as supplement the smaller food preparation areas in the concession stands, whose 350 feet of counter footage puts Rec Hall’s meager space to shame. But perhaps the greatest advance in Penn State sports and entertainment are the seats in the center—not flat, backless bleachers, but real, body-hugging, molded plastic chairs.
As the largest facility between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, the center, says Howard, will have a huge impact on Central Pennsylvania. Not only will it serve Penn State, but also communities such as Johnstown—now relegated to an hour and a half drive to Pittsburgh. The financial impact on the area has been estimated at $23.9 million per year. Year one of the Jordan Center’s era begins on Jan. 6, 1996, with graduation for fall semester 1995. The men’s basketball season will follow soon after, with an ESPN telecast scheduled for Penn State vs. Minnesota, on Jan. 11. The women’s basketball team will play their first game in The Bryce Jordan Center on Jan. 20 against Georgia, which will be telecast by CBS. As for other events, the center began taking formal calls for show bookings in October, though Howard says that many interested promoters began calling and visiting the center as early as this summer.
Bob Koch of PACE (the booking company for New Jersey’s Camden Amphitheatre) says that the touring industry in markets such as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh is eager to tap into The Bryce Jordan Center: “It’s going to be great.” He adds that State College is an in-between stop for Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Buffalo, and New York City. “It doesn’t interfere with any markets.” PACE, which deals solely with rock concerts, is holding dates in January, though it has not announced what shows, if any, it is scheduling. “We’re very excited,” Koch says. “PACE wants to put anything at the Jordan Center that we can.”
And so, as The Bryce Jordan Center gears up for a new era in Central Pennsylvania entertainment, one has to be amazed at the feat that has been accomplished. “The Penn State people are wonderful,” Bob Howard says, attributing the center’s success to the dedicated people working on the project and the experienced, conscientious staff who will serve the center for years to come. And in those years, Penn State students and alumni, as well as others throughout the state, may look back and marvel at how Pennsylvania’s third major entertainment market rose like the mighty oak from a simple hole in the earth.
Matthew Holm, a senior majoring in English, has absolutely no interest in basketball, so while he may never see the inside of The Bryce Jordan Center, he’ll probably never confuse it with the Michael Jordan Center.
