CORVALLIS — Anyone who has spent an afternoon catching an Oregon State football practice at Prothro Field has seen the cranes, watched the workers welding and avoided the dust next door.

The Gill Annex is taking shape between the practice fields and Gill Coliseum. Construction has been under way for some time and it is now recognizable as a structure.

The building will house the wrestling practice area and the program’s offices on the second floor. On the first floor will be a weight room for all sports.

John Cheney, OSU’s assistant athletic director in charge of facilities and operations, said the facility is scheduled to be completed in April 2008 at a cost of about $13 million.

“Eventually there will be some either practice courts or a small competition venue for some of the Olympic sports,” Cheney said. “We’re not quite there yet to determine how we’re going to (go).”

The wrestling program will move from their small room in Langton Hall. The new facility will give the wrestlers more room and should provide an additional attraction for recruits.

The site is handier for the wrestlers as well.

“It allows the wrestling program to come back down closer to their locker rooms and support facilities that we have at Gill for them,” Cheney said.

The weight room will cover approximately 17,000 square feet and include some new equipment for the athletes to do their training.

The ceiling will be high enough so the noise won’t bounce as much between the other areas of the building as it tends to do in the Valley Center during workouts.

“It expands the weight room to the size of what the previous two weight rooms were into one space, so we’ll be able to accommodate multiple teams at the same time or more of the football team at one time,” Cheney said. “It just gives us more flexibility with that.”

With the new scoreboard and south end zone completed, work on Reser Stadium will probably be put on hold for a while so OSU can concentrate on finishing the Gill Annex and other projects.

Cheney said work on the old grandstand has a lot of logistical challenges because of the press box. They won’t be able to cut it in half and put up aluminum bleachers like they did for the other side.

He said they would most likely take a modular approach to the work.

“That’s probably how we would have to do it,” Cheney said. “Your columns and elevator shafts and everything would be outside of it. We haven’t looked at it a whole lot yet, whether we do that side next or whether we do the other end zone and do some modifications of that and upgrades to the Valley Center or anything like that. It’s up in the air.”

In the meantime, OSU will continue the Gill Coliseum renovations, Gill Annex and begin work on the Goss Stadium expansion.

Cheney said the goal is to start next month and finish by the end of February in time for home baseball games.

He said they are deciding between expansion along the first base line alone or both sides, depending on the price of the project.

“It’s going to look pretty much the same as far as the seating with the cross aisle in the middle and seats on the upper and lower decks,” Cheney said. “There’s going to be an additional building behind the stands on the first base side that will have a club level at the top and will have an academic and hall of fame area on the lower level and coaching offices.”

Restrooms and concession stands will also be upgraded.

Other projects include moving the old end zone bleachers to the soccer stadium and possibly a new academic center and a practice track.