Indiana University of Pennsylvania will celebrate the groundbreaking of the Kovalchick Convention and Athletic Complex, as well as a seven-figure donation to the project, during a ceremony at 10:00 a.m. Thursday, November 13, at the convention center's site along Wayne Avenue.
IUP will honor the donor, 1999 graduate Chad Hurley, who is one of the founders of YouTube, the video-sharing website launched in 2005.
The event is open to the community. Parking is available at the former BiLo Plaza along Wayne Avenue.
Hurley continues to serve as YouTube's chief executive officer; he and his partner sold the website to Google in 2006 for $1.76 billion. Hurley, originally of Birdsboro, Berks County, now lives in Menlo Park, Calif. He is a 2007 recipient of the IUP Distinguished Alumni Award.
The KCAC, to be completed in 2011, is projected to have a $22 million economic impact on the region during construction and an annual economic impact of $12.5 million in each year of operation. It is named in honor of the Kovalchick family, of Indiana, which donated $2 million for the facility's construction.
The Horizon Team, a group representing Horizon Properties Group LLC and Summit Development Consulting Corporation, was selected in July to build an adjoining hotel to the KCAC. The hotel will be completed by March 2011 and will be owned by the Foundation for IUP, a nonprofit organization. Officials project that the hotel will generate $211 million in economic impact for the region in the first decade of its operation.
A separate groundbreaking event for the hotel is in the planning stages.