Speed Fab-Crete, a 57-year-old full-service commercial builder specializing in design/build, has begun construction on the new $5,275,000 Dale Keeling Field House for Everman Independent School District. The 24,100-square-foot complex will contain athletic facilities for the school district's 9th grade, junior varsity and varsity football teams. Completion is planned for spring of 2009.

The building is named in honor of Dale Keeling, the district's current director of athletics and head football coach, a position which he has held for 10 years. Keeling garnered two Class 3A state football championships in 2001 and 2002. Last year, Everman was champion of its Class 4A district and played in the state's semi-finals.

Fort Worth-based Callahan & Freeman Architects designed the angular-shaped facility. Architect Charles Freeman said the unusual shape of the building maximizes available space on the project site, which is in an end zone of the football field. Multiple windows in the coaches' offices and player weight rooms will face out onto a curved track bordering the field.

The exterior of the field house will be made of Speed Fab-Crete's precast concrete walls, with limestone rock aggregate, and a partial veneer of two different-colored bricks and a standing seam roof. The treatment will ensure campus continuity with existing school buildings, including the newly completed 9th Grade Center, also built by Speed Fab-Crete.

This is the sixth time since 1988 that Everman ISD has selected Speed Fab-Crete and Callahan & Freeman to design and build facilities for the rapidly growing district south of Fort Worth.