Construction lags have pushed the opening of the Ramshead Center back to March - a three-month delay caused by what officials now are calling overly optimistic starting plans.
The $72 million project, which will house a recreational facility, a grocery store, a dining area and a 700-space, three-level parking deck on South Campus, was slated to open during Winter Break.
But Kevin MacNaughton, UNC special assistant for capital projects, reported to the Board of Trustees' Finance Committee on Wednesday that officials now plan to have the center up and running by the time students return from Spring Break.
"It was a very ambitious schedule," he said after the meeting.
"We were pushing the project at a very fast pace, but it is not worth it to push so hard that the quality of the facility would go down some."
Officials were planning on opening the facility's dining hall in January 2005, even though some sections of the complex, which bridges the two halves of the UNC campus, were expected to be under construction.
Now that the opening date has been pushed back three months, all areas in the center should be complete at that time, MacNaughton said.
"We are watching this very closely to make sure that we don't have any further slippage," he said.
Several construction projects on South Campus are slated to begin soon after the Ramshead Center, now two years in the making, is complete.
