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Wading River scout camp getting new $1.9 million mess hall

OLA WILK PHOTO/ WILK MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS | The Boy Scouts of America Theodore Roosevelt Council and BBS Architects, Landscape Architects and Engineers broke ground for the new $1.9 million Hickox Dining Hall at Schiff Scout Reservation in Wading River on Saturday.

More than 1,000 people attended a groundbreaking ceremony in Wading River Saturday for a new dining hall at the Schiff Scout Reservation on Wading River Manor Road.

The new facility will replace a building lost during a 2011 fire at the Boy Scout camp.

“Once completed, this beautiful, year-round facility will serve our campers for decades to come,”  Boy Scouts of America Theodore Roosevelt Council Scout Executive and CEO Jay Garee said in a press release. “I look forward to opening the new hall next year.”

The 7,100 square foot dining hall will feature the same dimensions as the previous structure and cost an estimated $1.9 million to build, officials said.

A tapered-shaped, rubble stone chimney of the fireplace will serve as the visual central focal point of the building’s exterior, the architects said in a press release.  A 10-foot-wide, three-and-a half-foot high fireplace pit will be open to both the interior and the exterior. The interiors will house a 3,500-sq.-ft. dining room, an 1,800-sq.-ft commercial kitchen with a walk-in freezer and refrigerator, handicapped restrooms, and a storage room.  The dining room will feature an 18-foot-high, 15-foot-wide, paneled climbing wall, manufactured by Eldorado Climbing Walls, officials said. 

Established in the 1920s and previously known as Camp Wauwepex, the Schiff Scout Reservation is a 400-acre camp located in the Long Island Pine Barrens at Wading River.  The camp surrounds the 30-acre Deep Pond, which is known for its yellow perch, chain pickerel and stocked trout fishery, according to the press release.

BBS ARCHITECTS RENDERING | BBS Architects designed the new $1.9 million Hickox Dining Hall at Schiff Scout Reservation in Wading River.