Mendenhall Center Inching Closer To Final Stages As Basketball Season Appears On The Horizon

Back in March of 2010, UNLV announced that a brand new, state of the art basketball practice facility was being donated to the school by Bob Mendenhall and other donors. Seven months later, the groundbreaking ceremony took place and construction was officially underway.

While football season is a major focus of college fans during August, basketball season is only a few short months away, with UNLV's first regular season game taking place on November 4th. The Runnin' Rebels have made strides in the level of talent they are recruiting and the Mendenhall Center is one of their biggest resources. No recruit can now say "Well, they have a much nicer practice facility."

The Mendenhall Center isn't exactly in the final stages of construction yet (installing courts, seats for viewing area, etc.) But it certainly is getting close to there. I had the opportunity a few days back to go down to the Mendenhall Center and take a few pictures of the construction progress and I'll be able to compare it to the original artist's rendering from back in March to see just how close we are.

When I went down to the Mendenhall Center, I took pictures from all angles of the building. Not just the one angle from the Thomas & Mack the the live webcam feed provides. Let's take a look at what the building currently looks like from the Thomas & Mack and what it is supposed to end up looking like.

Current

Artist's Rendering

Current

Artist's Rendering

From what I've seen, it looks as if there is only a few remaining tasks for the construction crew before they get to the final stages. They need to put in the panels along the outside (walls), put the glass in, and finish the roof off as well. After that, they can begin installing the court, putting in carpet and painting walls.

A few days have gone by since I took these pictures and in the meantime, the inside panels of the facility have begun to be put up. Here is a screenshot of the webcam:

That is only after a few days of progress, so it looks like this project just might be complete or very near completion by the time basketball season rolls around.

For those of you not informed of what the Mendnehall Center will be, it will be a basketball-only practice facility. That does include the women's team as well, but this is definitely an upgrade from where the Runnin' Rebels used to practice at. This is also going to have a UNLV Hall of Fame and a Mezzazine viewing area for the general public to view the UNLV practices.

Here are the rest of the photos I took:

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