NEW ORLEANS ― The $2.2 million field house at Hoss Memtsas Stadium is still sitting vacant, the shine and new building luster still there as the West Jefferson High athletic department waits to move in.

And all that’s holding the Buccaneers up, apparently, are a few hand rails asked for by the fire marshal after inspection.

Cox's field house began being constructed in April 2008. Less than a year later, the Cougers were in. The field house at West Jeff is built, but the Buccaneers can't move in until the fire marshal give the OK.

“Right now, the delay is the fire marshal has requested some changes to some hand rails,” said David Taylor, assistant superintendant of facilities with the Jefferson Parish School Board. “They also had to work out a couple of issues with the fire marshal that didn’t amount to anything other than answering questions.

“There was an issue with some lockers and getting some bench seats installed. Other than that, the building is complete. The main reason it was delayed is we have to work through those issues.”

Jefferson Parish Schools began building field houses at East Jefferson, West Jefferson and Helen Cox in the past year. Helen Cox moved into its field house within the past six months and the field house and construction at East Jefferson began later than the other two.

Manny Barocco, athletics director for Jefferson Parish public schools, said there’s frustration with the fact that the building at West Jefferson is sitting vacant, basically ready to move in.

But he also said he understands that with construction, everything doesn’t go according to plan all the time.

“This has been over a month now that it looks like it’s ready but there’s obviously some issues that they have to work out with the contractor,” Barocco said.  “Yes, there are some things that are frustrating. But we also know that through the frustration, there have to be some I’s dotted and T’s crossed.”

The delay in moving the West Jeff football program out of the facilities beneath the home stands at Memtsas isn’t changing how second-year coach Marcus Scott is doing things, he said.

“We still get everything done,” Scott said. “We just have to continue with our same routine we did from the fall and in the past. It works out. It’s not the best situation, but we make the best of it.”

All three programs are expected to be in their respective new fieldhouses by the beginning of this fall’s football season, Taylor said.

Additionally, projects to upgrade Hoss Memtsas Stadium are still on schedule and haven’t been delayed by the inability of West Jeff to move out, Taylor said.

Changes to the stadium will include renovating the locker rooms and coach’s office, repairing the stadium structure and working on the press box.

“That has been divided into two phases,” Taylor said. “The first stage really is not dealing with the locker rooms, but mainly upgrades to hand rails throughout the stadium and some concrete repair to the stadium itself.”