Joliet Junior College Event Center offers numerous opportunities for events, partnerships

JOLIET – The Joliet Junior College Event Center promises to do more than offer a brand-new athletic space.

The roughly 85,200-square-foot, two-story facility – previously called the Multipurpose Facility at the time of its groundbreaking – will offer a number of possible uses. JJC spokeswoman Kelly Rohder said the Event Center has space that can be for K-12 athletic events, craft fairs or the Joliet Regional Job Fair.

“Now there’s one space where people can come to do that,” Rohder said. “So that will be very important for the college moving forward – really pursuing some of those partnership opportunities.”

JJC has been working persistently on constructing the center, and JJC construction and facility planning manager Richard Lyman said the college is ahead of schedule because of the good winter season last year.

The center, which is located on the southwest side of the college’s main campus, is scheduled to open in fall 2017.

The indoor turf already has been installed in the center’s gym, which includes basketball courts, portable batting cages, bleachers and seating to accommodate athletic competitions and graduation ceremonies.

“This is like walking on carpet,” Lyman said of the turf.

He said he learned a lot about turf on the Event Center project, including the difference between outdoor and indoor turf, the quality of it and even the spin of a baseball when it hits it.

He said JJC itself filled the role of a general contractor for the project, with himself as the construction manager. He said the college saved about $1 million by doing the work in-house. The cost of the project for JJC is $22.6 million.

Lyman noted other features of the gym in the center, such as that it has a capacity of about 4,690 people, and has one side with basketball courts and the other with turf. The configuration option for the gym can include basketball and volleyball tournaments.

When people are practicing baseball on the turf side, a heavy-duty curtain will drop, which can stop baseballs from flying to the other side, he said.

Overlooking the gym is a multipurpose room that also can be a space rented out to the community for events, Rohder said.

The center also includes space to display trophies, conditioning space, and athletic offices that are more than double the size of the current ones located in the G building of the main campus.

It also will feature JJC’s Wolves mascot, designed by Shawn McGuan, a graphic designer at the college, Rohder said.

Wayne King, the college’s athletic director, has said he’s waited 30 years for a building like the JJC Event Center to come to the college.

Rohder stated in an email that the college has received preliminary inquiries from some organizations, but most are waiting for the facility to be complete before they make formal arrangements.

Joliet Park District Executive Director Tom Carstens said park officials haven’t discussed the center but will be talking about potential future involvement.

“I’m sure we will have discussion about possible cooperative use,” Carstens said.

Lyman said one of the most important things for the college is student perception of the facilities.

“Perception means a lot. You walk into a nice building like this. … The first perception means a lot,” he said.