In just a little more than a year, alumni will have a place to go to recall the traditions of Iowa State and gather and reconnect with the university.

The Alumni Center will be located off Beach Avenue, near the Iowa State Center, and is planned to be completed in April 2008.

“We are building this inside the hill, so it had to have a lot of additional work done in order to hold back the earth,” said Jeff Johnson, director of the Alumni Association.

The necessary plumbing has been installed and the foundation walls have been installed. Currently, concrete is being poured to make the main underground walls. These walls will be able to hold the dirt surrounding the building, Johnson said.

For two to three weeks, the construction was delayed because of bad weather. Concrete needed to be poured that wasn’t able to, said Carole Gieseke, communications director of the Alumni Association.

“Any time we do construction during the winter, we expect some delay,” said Roger Graden, architect for facilities planning and management. “That delay is built into the construction schedule.”

The main reason for the delay was the cold temperatures in the last few months. Structural steel will be arriving in about a month, Graden said.

“We will also see a lot of progress this summer.”

When finished, the center will hold rooms for meetings, conferences and banquets. It will also hold office space for Cyclone Alley, the Student Alumni Leadership Council, the Alumni Association, the Retirees Association and the College for Seniors.

The center will also include a ballroom for events and receptions that will hold functions currently held in the Scheman Building. The Alumni Center will not have as much room, so it will not be in competition with the Scheman Building, Gieseke said.

Johnson said after a lot of research, it was decided Beach Avenue was the best location for the building.

“The Iowa State Center is the place that people return to when they come back to campus,” he said.

When alumni return to campus in large groups, they return to the Iowa State Center. Some of them still make their way to campus, but those are individual visits, Johnson said.

“We have always had an office that served as an office for our operations, but never a gathering place,” Johnson said. “People need a place to come back to. You are a student for four to six years, but you are an alumni for the rest of your life.”

The interior of the building will feature four hallways dedicated to distinguished alumni, student and alumni leadership and inventors from Iowa State.

The first hallway will be called the Hall of Inspiration.

“It will share stories about some of ISU’s most distinguished alumni,” Johnson said.

The second hallway will be dedicated to all of the student groups at the university, including those that are no longer active. The hallway will put an emphasis on student leadership.

The third hallway will focus on Iowa State’s inventions, patents and licenses.

The final hallway, located on the third floor of the building, will cater to alumni leadership. It will focus on past chairpersons and presidents of the Alumni Association.

“[The hallways] will tell Iowa State’s story, showcase and honor alumni and students, and be a way for people to have a visual connection to the university,” Johnson said.

Currently, the Alumni Association is housed in Fisher-Nickell Hall. Because of the construction on the Memorial Union, the association was asked to leave its normal office space, Gieseke said.