Schar Center update: Arena seat installation underway as interior takes shape

The 5,100-seat, 160,000-square-foot facility will provide a premier gathering space for major campus events and serve as the new home for Elon's basketball and volleyball programs when it opens this year.

The expansive interior of Elon's Schar Center continues to take shape as construction crews work toward the center's completion in 2018. Crews have begun installing seats within the Schar Center's main arena as other interior work progresses and the project moves closer to completion

The Schar Center will serve as a venue for convocations, speakers and other major campus events. It will also be the new home court for Elon's basketball and volleyball teams, with triple the space of Alumni Memorial Gymnasium, and include a practice facility with two full courts, hospitality room, club-level seating and high-definition video boards. The facility is scheduled to open in 2018.

An interactive construction cam that had been tracking progress on the Schar Center's exterior has now been moved inside, with viewers now able to see how the main arena is beginning to take shape. 

Alumni, parents and friends can follow the Schar Center progress at its website — www.elon.edu/scharcenter — which includes the latest photos and news of the facility, as well as renderings, a live construction cam and photos from past project milestones.

Visitors to the website can take a look inside and outside the Schar Center with fly-through videos. In addition, an interactive construction cam allows viewers to scroll back through construction photos and provides a time-lapse feature so viewers can watch the center take shape.

The facility is named for Elon parents Dwight and Martha Schar, of Palm Beach, Fla., who are among Elon's most generous donors and whose $13 million in gifts to the university provided lead funding for the convocation center and the expanded School of Communications.