Livingstone ready to unveil new conference center

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, December 2, 2009

By Sarah Nagem
snagem@salisburypost.com
Livingstone College has a new attraction on its campus.
Construction of a roughly 2,100-square-foot conference center is wrapping up this week.
College leaders are celebrating the completion of the center at an invitation-only event Friday.
The conference center is in front of a new residence hall still under construction.
School leaders will host meetings and events in the new building, said State Alexander, director of public relations for Livingstone.
“We will also use it as a laboratory once the hospital management program gets approved,” Alexander said.
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools must grant approval before Livingstone can offer new academic degrees.
The conference center features nine hotel-like rooms so students in the program can gain experience operating a hotel, Alexander said.
Parents visiting their children on campus will have the opportunity to stay there, he said.
The building has a full kitchen, and each living space has a full bathroom.
Alexander said church groups could use the conference center, too.
DIR Construction in Greensboro began working on the conference center and residence hall last spring.
School leaders had hoped to have the residence hall ready by October to accommodate their larger-than-usual enrollment.
But that didn’t happen.
“We got started late,” said Joe Bostic, co-owner of DIR.
Workers began grading the site off Monroe Street in February or March, he said.
“The weather sort of held up construction a bit,” Alexander said.
Too much rain wasn’t the only factor. Acquiring the proper building permits also took time, he said.
But Bostic said he was pleased with the way the conference center turned out. The walls are painted yellow throughout, and the meeting area can hold 299 seats, he said.
The 55,000-square-foot residence hall should be finished by January, when students begin the second semester, Bostic said.