Kaiserslautern mall construction moving forward despite delays

[unhappycamper]

Common areas in the mall portion of the Kaiserslautern Military Community Center show signs of nearing completion on Friday. Cardboard covers the tiled floor to protect it from final construction work. Officials are hoping the 844,000-square-foot facility will be completed by the end of 2008, but have not set an opening date.


Kaiserslautern mall construction moving forward despite delays
By Scott Schonauer, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Sunday, February 10, 2008

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — For months, the unfinished Kaiserslautern Military Community Center appeared abandoned before it ever opened.

Passers-by saw few — if any — workers on the site of the mall-hotel project. Unused building materials flapped in the wind. Knee-high weeds sprouted around the massive building, a center so big an official once called it the U.S. military’s version of Mall of America.

The facility is still months away from being finished, has no opening date and its roof still occasionally leaks, but there are signs that work has slowly resumed on the controversial project. The signs aren’t dramatic, but any progress on a facility that has seen so little in the last six months is regarded as positive.

“Now the goal is to facilitate everything we can do to get it done this year, so we can get a — no kidding — opening set up,” said Col. Dave Reynolds, who was appointed the project’s resident director late last year.

The project has been delayed so much that officials are hesitant to give an exact opening date.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=52353



uhc comment: Yesterday's thread on Kaiserslautern --> http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=259&topic_id=11132