CHRISTOPHER DABE
Published 12:00 am, Tuesday, September 23, 2008
The opening of Port Neches-Groves’ new, $10.2 million stadium might be delayed another two weeks because of construction delays caused by Hurricane Ike, PN-G coach Matt Burnett said Tuesday.
Burnett and other school officials will meet with the construction officials at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday to discuss pushing the home opener from Oct. 10 against Livingston to Oct. 24 against Lumberton.
Still incomplete are the stadium’s press box, home-side concourse under the bleachers and concession stands.
“What we’re going to look at is what are the basics that we have to have for a ballgame to be played,” said Tom Neild, vice president of Beaumont’s H.B. Neild & Sons Inc., the stadium construction contractor. “Anything beyond that, we’ll make a decision about if we want to tackle that or not (Wednesday).”
The stadium might open Oct. 10 without a completed press box or concession stands.
“The concession stands could be ready but might not be selling hot dogs, but they’ll still sell bottled Cokes and packaged peanuts and those kinds of things,” Neild said. “Ticket booths might be open but not have an electronic cash register, but they’ll still do it the old-fashioned way. We’re willing to do what is needed to do to accomplish a game being played as soon as possible.”
The stadium sustained minor press box damage during the storm, Neild said. Metal framing on the press box windows got bent and have been replaced.
How the storm impacted the construction budget cannot be determined until the stadium is complete, he said.
The Indians already had one scheduled home game moved to another site. The team’s District 20-4A opener against Little Cypress-Mauriceville, rescheduled from Friday to Sept. 30, will be played at LC-M. PN-G had been set to play that game at Port Arthur’s Memorial Stadium, but the stadium’s parking lot is being used as a staging area for emergency relief workers.
No alternate location for the Oct. 10 game has been picked, Burnett said.
“We’ll have to wait and see what they say (Wednesday),” Burnett said.
Included in the meeting will be Burnett, Neild, PN-G Superintendent Lani Randall, PN-G high school Principal Marc Keith, Scotty Lewis of engineering firm LANWalton and architect J. Luis DelValle of SHW Group in Houston.
Also discussed at the meeting will be Ike’s impact on the construction of two middle schools.
“(The stadium is) a priority because it’s a major and still-important project that we have been trying to stay on a timeline with, but we have to take crews down for so many days during the hurricane,” Randall said.
Among other Ike-related concerns for Randall are roof and window damages at schools thorough the district.
“We’ve had a quite a bit of repairs to the whole district,” she said. “But this is not as devastating as Rita.”
