Hurricane Irene destroyed the employee center at PotashCorp in 2011. After nearly three years, a new employee facility will open on Thursday with a dedication and ribbon cutting ceremony at 5:30 p.m.

The groundbreaking ceremony for the brand new 15,000-square-foot-building took place in March 2013. The new center features four meeting rooms, a full kitchen and office space. It was built 14-feet above the floodplain a raised elevation at the same location as the old center.

The building is supported by 182 55-foot, 12-inch-square concrete pilings, and were driven 55-feet into the ground.

“It’s an entirely new footprint because we built it up so high on a mound it’s a good 10-feet higher than it was previously,” said Ray McKeithan, manager of public and government affairs for PotashCorp-Aurora.

During the original construction of the previous employee center, Potash used two existing, historic barns from a company property at Archbell Point. The barns were floated across the Pamlico River and set up at the current site of the new building, but they were damaged beyond repair during the hurricane.

“It was an early form of adaptive reuse. I guess it could even be called recycling to a certain degree,” McKeithan said.

McKeithan said the new employee center is paying homage the old one.

“We wanted to keep the look and feel of the old building for sentimental and functional reasons,” McKeithan said. “None of the original building remains.”

PotashCorp kept an old boardroom table that survived the flooding and refurbished it to use in the new employee center.

“There is a small gazebo that is on the river side of the building that withstood the storm and we have kept that as is,” McKeithan said. “We kept it as a testimony to endurance and perseverance.”

The construction of the building was done in a vernacular style, which is embracing regionalism and cultural building traditions of the Coastal Plains.

The Washington-Beaufort County Chamber of Commerce is co-hosting the dedication, along with four other county chambers of commerce and PotashCorp. Washington-based WIMCO Corp constructed the building, and Dunn & Dalton designed the building.

“We are very excited to be a part of this event at the new employee center at PotashCorp,” said Catherine Glover, executive director the Chamber.