Times Observer photo by Brian Ferry Warren County Career Center’s new entrance, and the rest of the building, will be done soon. District officials expect the work to be done by the first of the year.

The Warren County Career Center is getting ready to open.

The renovation project at the career center had a major setback with the arrival of COVID-19.

There are still five of the center’s 13 programs that are not in the building.

“I currently have three programs located behind Warren Area High School — Auto Body Collision, Pre-Engineering and Information Technology,” Principal Jim Evers said. “Automotive Technology is located at the Anderson Building down by Beaty and Culinary is located at Central Office.”

“All other programs are located in their finished classrooms, including the four new areas – both Health/Medical classes including the labs, Protective Services, and Marketing,” Evers said.

Director of Buildings and Grounds Services Dr. Norbert Kennerknecht advised the school board of progress on the project during Monday’s meeting of the physical plant and facilities committee.

“We extended the contract by the number of days that we were off in March-April,” Kennerknecht said. “We’re looking at the end of December.”

The career center’s general advisory committee met virtually on Friday and Evers updated that group.

“It’s anticipated that auto body and auto collision will be back in their spaces around Thanksgiving and the entire building will be done at Christmas,” Evers said.

“Right after we come back from the holidays we will be in our building.”

Evers has taken some people on tours of the building during construction.

“I’ve walked through,” he said. “It’s amazing.”

And, he intends to welcome the public in the spring.

“We are in the process of organizing and developing a massive open house,” he said. “We would really like to showcase what we have.”