By BRUCE GOULD, guest columnist

In spite of the continuing rainy weather, some progress is being made on earth-moving in the parking area and the new road at the Brown County Music Center. Additional equipment and manpower are available, so when there is a break in the weather, a lot of work can be done.

As the dirt is spread back and compacted, drainage must be considered, and wiring for the parking lot post lights buried. Thick layers of different sizes of stone will be spread and compacted over the dirt, and then asphalt will be applied over some areas of the stone.

At present, asphalt is planned for the road, primary drives and handicapped parking. Our hope had been to asphalt the entire parking area, but with the extremely wet weather, waiting to blacktop until the parking lot is used and has an opportunity to compact more and reveal any problem areas will result in much less repair work later.

Essentially, all of the concrete work inside the building is complete. Having concrete floors to walk on adds a real sense of completeness. Later in the process, the concrete floors will be cleaned and polished.

Watching the concrete being worked on the sloped floor in the theater was fascinating. One hundred and twenty-five cubic yards of concrete was poured for the theater sloped floor starting at 5:30 a.m. and the pour was completed by 10 a.m. Ten concrete workers using various types of equipment smoothed the concrete until it reached the point where it was set up and nothing else could be done. The key to being professional concrete workers is that by the time the point is reached where nothing else can be done, nothing else needs to be done, as was the case here.

All of the windows have been installed for some time and many of the doors are now installed, including the outside doors. By the time of this publication, the building will probably have all outside doors installed including the garage doors in the loading dock area, after which the building can be completely locked up and air handling systems can begin to move air and lower the humidity in the building.

Many of the inside walls have received at least one coat of paint and some areas are completely painted. The wall between the performing stage and back stage is still under construction, but should be finished soon. That particular wall is 30 feet tall, spans the entire distance of the stage, and is designed to be soundproof due to its thickness and the acoustic building materials used. House lights in the theater are installed and in use with performance lighting to follow in mid-July.

The Brown County stone masonry work on the outside of the lobby is completed and outside sidewalk construction has begun. Several sidewalks will be built to provide access from the parking lot into the building. More than 20 handicapped parking spots will be located on the north very close to the building entrance.

Storm water flowing off the building will go into an underground drainage system and flow to the creek. The building itself is above the floodplain, so there will never be a possibility of the building flooding, although a small part of the parking lot is in the floodplain.

Very soon we will have to start getting serious about planning the landscaping.

Bruce Gould is vice president of the Maple Leaf Management Group. Any questions about the venue can be sent to [email protected].