Construction on the Union Drive Community Center, a new three-story structure by Friley Hall, is behind schedule.

“We’re about two weeks behind,” said Randy Alexander, director of the Department of Residence.

“The original date was July 15 or something, so being two weeks behind is not a problem.”

The community center, scheduled to now open in August, will be the first market place-style dining facility of its kind at Iowa State.

“This project is scheduled to be completed this summer so that hopefully it is being used when the fall semester starts,” Alexander said.

On the first floor of the Community Center there will be a sports club that will have booth seating along the walls, soft seating around the fireplace and table seating everywhere else, Alexander said. There will be four televisions including one plasma television, he said.

“It would be open until 11:30 or 12 at night, and it could be open later than that on weekends,” Alexander said.

The budget for the Union Drive Community Center is $15.5 million, said Warren Madden, vice president of business and finance.

“They are currently working within that budget,” Madden said. “At least that is the general plan.”

According to the Union Drive Community Center Web site, www.public.iastate.edu/`dor/

UDCC/homepage.html, on the first floor of the community center will be the West Side Market, a convenience store that will offer a made-to-order deli counter and a smoothie station.

Also on the first floor will be a post office with a service window and a document center that will provide all of the services that would be offered at Copyworks, Alexander said. There will also be a multipurpose room for all sorts of activities including aerobics and a fitness center, he said.

There will also be seating in the main area of the first floor with a lot of natural lighting and a skylight that sits above the main staircase, Alexander said.

“The architect designed this so there is just natural lighting everywhere,” Alexander said.

The second floor of the community center is the main dining floor, Alexander said. He said it is the home of the Union Drive Marketplace.

“This will relocate all of the Friley food service operation that has been feeding the students in the Friley Hall area,” Madden said. “Basically they will be closing the Friley food activity spaces and moving all that into the new community center.”

According to the Union Drive Web site, there are nine different food venues that the community center will offer.

At the Backyard Grill, students can eat hamburgers, chicken tenders, pork fritters and hot dogs. Another is the Cereal Bar which will be open all day and will include 18 varieties of cold cereals and hot cream of wheat and oatmeal.

“It’s like our other dining centers,” Alexander said. “It’s all you can eat.”

There will be porch area seating that will allow students to sit outside, Alexander said. The porch area will eventually be expanded and turned into a stage area for concerts and other performances to take place, he said.

The hours for the dining center are 6:45 a.m. to 10 a.m. for breakfast, 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. for lunch and 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. for dinner, Monday through Friday. Weekend hours are changed slightly.

All the food areas inside this building will accept dining dollars, meal plans, CyCash and regular cash as payments for the food, Alexander said.

There will also be three meeting rooms and small catering kitchens available for hosting special events, Alexander said. There will also be two skylights for additional natural lighting, he said.

There will be an elevator in the community center to make the building accessible to everyone, Alexander said.

Madden said the community center’s location was picked partially to make it more accessible to the campus community at large.

The community center’s design and focus is primarily to serve the students who are residing on the west side of the campus, Madden said.

Its size is a lot smaller than the Memorial Union, he said.

The Memorial Union offers a wider range of recreational spaces, like bowling alleys, meeting rooms, copy centers, food services and large banquet spaces, Madden said. The community center is not designed to serve that scope of projects, he said.