HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The matter of concession stands and seating took up most of the discussion at the July meeting of the Sports Arena Building Committee Thursday afternoon.

The committee continued to discuss how to try and save at least one of the lower concession stands that currently exist on the east and west sides and how much could be done without a big hit to a tight budget. The issue of keeping one of the concession stands has been a topic of much discussion ever since the college made the request to keep one of the stands open to accommodate fans who would sit on the north side of the arena. Since the concession stands were to be taken out, the cost to keep them has become an expensive addition. The committee is wanting to give the east stand a facelift without any major renovation. JE Dunn said it would have numbers for the committee soon.

The other discussion came from the seating in the arena and what to do about getting the seating chart assembled so that HCC can begin issuing season tickets for the 2016-17 basketball season. The process has been a slow one and JE Dunn said it would work to have that chart available by Monday.

As far as the work goes, steel is set to go up on the south side of the project in the coming week with steel and masonry work progressing on the north side. The new gym floor is installed and work continues to have some of the locker rooms ready for the fall sports season.

The biggest issue right now is dealing with mud in the north side addition since the area gets very little air circulation to dry things out.