Adroit Construction

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No matter how you try to put it in words, there's really no matching the excitement folks in Ashland feel as they inch closer to a day that some believed would never come. After being displaced for almost two years, athletes, coaches and administrators at Ashland High will finally get to enjoy the fruits of their patience when the renovated Mountain Avenue gymnasium officially opens Friday for the Ashland Rotary Hoop Classic. "I cannot wait," Ashland athletic director Karl Kemper said Monday. "It's like we've been stuck in an apartment for 21 months while we're waiting for our house to be built." Unless there's a schedule change, the first official basketball game will be at 1:30 p.m. Friday pitting the girls teams from North Medford and Summit. The Ashland girls will take the court at 6 p.m. against Marshfield, and the Ashland boys will follow at 7:45 against Henley. There will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new gymnasium at 5 p.m. Friday to recognize prominent figures in Ashland who helped make it all happen, as well as representatives from Adroit Construction, which tackled the $7.7 million renovation project. "Adroit's just been a dream to work with," says Kemper. "They did a really nice job of blending the old with the new so it still has a lot of that retro feel. It's gorgeous." The original gym was built in 1953 when Ashland High had around 300 students. Kemper says the school and community had outgrown the facility in just about every way. He's been giving tours of the site the past few days, sometimes three to four times per day, and the response has been universal. "It's just people dropping their jaws," he says. "I took our JV boys (basketball) coach Clint Bryan in the other day and if you could've just seen his face. I took my kids to Disneyland last April and he had the same look on his face. He's a basketball junkie and he just couldn't get over it." From shiny new maple floors to upgraded heating and cooling systems and just about everything in between, the Grizzlies' new home has certainly been worth the wait. New lighting, wireless scoreboards, locker rooms and expanded seating are all in place, as are additional bathrooms and a new main entrance and ticket booth off Mountain Avenue. The renovated gym boasts 94-foot basketball courts in the main and auxiliary gym instead of the previous 84-foot courts. The main gym space is just under 12,000 square feet

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