Cooke Douglass Farr Lemons | Architects & Engineers PA
In the Press
In the Press
Seabees Cut Ribbon on New Center
Mississippi Business Journal / March 13, 2009
Gulfport, MS A ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held today onboard the Naval Construction Battalion Center Gulfport for the new 15,583 square-foot Seabee Training Hall and Heritage Center. The $8-million facility, designed by Cooke Douglass Farr Lemons Architects & Engineers PA and built by W.G. Yates and Sons Construction, is part of a $320-million Hurricane Katrina recapitalization funding project.
Construction began on the new 600-seat training facility in December 2007 and was completed January 26, 2009. It is used for instructing Seabees on various tasks as well as a "lock-down" facility prior to Seabee deployments. The training hall, which seconds as a movie theater when not being used for official purposes, has a state-of-the-art audio/visual presentation system, four projectors and retractable screens, a 1,500 square-foot stage, several LCD flat screen monitors and an 830 square-foot kitchen and food serving area.
Also in the same building is the Seabee Heritage Center, which displays dozens of artifacts telling the historic Seabee story. It is collocated with a 350 square-foot Seabee Store where visitors can purchase various memorabilia.