ELON COLLEGE – The Elon College Board of Trustees has selected Beers Construction Co. of Winston-Salem, N.C., as general contractor for construction of Rhodes Stadium on the college’s campus. Construction will begin in March with a formal groundbreaking scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, March 14.
Rhodes Stadium will be a 8,250-seat bowl-shaped facility located at the college’s North Athletics Complex. Total seating capacity can be expanded to 10,000 using a bermed area at the north end of the stadium. The field, which will be large enough for football and soccer competition, will be constructed 16 feet below ground level, providing easy access to seating on the home and visitors sides. The home stands include a press box, concessions facilities and several hospitality areas and suites, including a lobby for large social functions. One thousand of the seats on the home stands will include backrests. Full lighting will allow for nighttime athletics competition. The stadium is expected to be completed for fall 2001, in time for the football home opener.
Beers and its subcontractors will be responsible for construction of the stadium and its related structures, grade work on the surrounding site, including a practice football field and soccer field east of the stadium, and a parking lot and roads leading to the stadium. Other elements of the $13 million project, which will be handled by other contractors, include construction of the stadium playing field, telephone and data lines to the site and a sewer line that is a joint project of the college and the town of Elon College. Ellerbe Becket, a worldwide integrated architecture, engineering and construction services firm based in Minneapolis, is project architect.
Beers Construction Co. has served as contractor for many athletics facilities including the Georgia Dome, Olympic Stadium (now Turner Field for the Atlanta Braves), Adelphia Coliseum (Tennessee Titans), Bryant-Denny Stadium (University of Alabama), Tiger Stadium (Louisiana State University), Philips Arena (Atlanta Hawks) and Bobby Dodd Stadium (Georgia Tech). It also specializes in construction of facilities for education, health care, offices, hotels and aviation. Beers is headquartered in Atlanta. It is a subsidiary of Skanska, an international corporation based in Stockholm, Sweden, with operations in 50 nations.
Fund raising continues for other athletics complex facilities, including an expansion of the Koury Field House to provide locker room space and construction of a bell tower at the stadium’s entrance.
Rhodes Stadium is named in honor of the Rhodes family by Dusty and Peggy Rhodes of Gibsonville, who have contributed $2 million to the project. The stadium’s field is named McKinnon Field in honor of Bob E. McKinnon, a 1962 Elon College alumnus, and his wife, Ray, of Hickory, N.C., who have contributed $1 million. An archway at the stadium’s entrance will be named in honor of Nick Theos, a 1956 Elon graduate, of Charleston, S.C., thanks to a $750,000 pledge from his classmate, Furman Moseley and his wife, Susan, of Seattle.
Elon’s football team currently plays in Burlington Memorial Stadium at Williams High School, which is several miles from campus. An on-campus stadium is a key step in the college’s transition to NCAA Division I athletics. The project is part of the $40 million Campaign for the Elon Vision, a fund drive to support the college’s ambitious strategic plan to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
-30-