ELKINS — Randolph County Development Authority Director Robbie Morris provided an Event Center update during the Development Authority’s most recent meeting last week.

Construction on the 28,000-square-foot, $11.6 million facility began in January. An official groundbreaking ceremony for the center, which will be located behind the Elkins Railroad Depot and Rotary Amphitheater, took place in late April.

“The Event Center is moving along nicely. They are currently working on foundations for the facility,” Morris said. “We are currently on schedule despite the weather not being the greatest in the world, but they continue to move forward and I would put us on schedule and if anything slightly ahead.”

Morris said the concrete removal from the old Railroad Roundhouse ended up being a large job for construction workers.

“That was a massive undertaking in getting the old Roundhouse foundation out of there,” Morris said. “There was actually some concrete that we discovered that was not in the original tech reports. So we had a little bit more there than what was planned for, but it’s all out. They crushed up the vast majority of it and will be reusing it on the site to fill in some of the undercut and that type of stuff, so saved us in hauling and disposal fees and things like that. They just crushed it up on site and we are using it as a base for things like roadways, parking lots, and those types of things. So that was a good reuse of that material.”

Morris said steel for the facility will begin arriving in July. He said the Center’s completion is close to a year away.

“The steel for the Center is being manufactured right now and once it arrives in mid-to-late summer we will start seeing some stuff go vertical,” Morris said. “Somewhere toward the month of April or the beginning of May next year we should have everything complete. We are really excited about it.”

Morris also gave an update on the Odd Fellows property the RCDA purchased back in 2021. The property purchased by the RCDA contains 71 acres and is situated across the street from the Odd Fellows Home on Georgetown Road.

“We awarded a contract to Potesta & Associates for an Environmental Phase 1 study to be performed on the property,” Morris said. “For our marketing package it is always good to have Environmental Phase 1 reports to provide to any prospects… We are still working through the permitting process to be able to start working on the entrance off of River Bend Park Road. So it’s progressing and we still have one prospect who is interested in the property. We just continue to jump through hoops and get it ready for development.”