In February 2015, Grand Valley State University was approved for a $12 million, two-story addition onto the campus recreation center. Then, in July, the university was approved for a 47,000 square foot, second phase of expansion. The new project is now $20 million.
“Our student population has grown tremendously since the original rec center was built,” said Kate Harmon, director of campus recreation at GVSU. “We have over 24,000 students now. I think that when you talk about the demand for space that’s purely based on our increase enrollment over the years.”
Just last year, Harmon reported that the university has over 55 club sports, over 4,000 students participating in intramural sports and over 36,000 visits to the recreation center. The original rec center, which was built in 1996 and expanded in 2002, simply was not enough for their growing student population.
When deciding what to include in the expansion and what areas of the current facility needed to be updated, Harmon said she looked at NIRSA facility guidelines of schools similar to GVSU’s size, benchmarked with peer institutions and surveyed and communicated with their students. Additionally, Harmon said the expansion has been a good relationship builder for recreation and other departments on campus.
“Work with your university leadership and become part of master planning,” Harmon suggested. “People get into master planning discussions and they try to decide what’s going to happen to parking over the next 15 to 20 years and where the next academic building is going to be placed in the next 10, 15, 20 years, and to really get on their page too and have recreation be a part of the discussion.”
Preparing for the future also helped Harmon decide what pieces of equipment needed updating or increased as well. “Years ago, students didn’t have these kind of weight room, exercise facilities in their high school so we were doing a lot more equipment orientation. Now, students know how to use so there’s an extra patient demand for those spaces,” Harmon said.
She consulted studies that stated student’s visits to a recreation center have been proven to aid in memory retention, self-confidence and an overall healthy lifestyle. With a 45-minute wait for one piece of equipment, Harmon said she feared students would not continue to come back to the rec center.
“We want to reduce the barriers that prevent our students from exercising. And in our case, it was simply just overcrowding,” Harmon said. “If you exercise, you’re leading a healthier lifestyle, you have a better well being, improve self-confidence and, like I said, people perform better academically so why wouldn’t you want your students exercising? You would!”
The expansion is going to include expanded weight space, cardio equipment, three basketball courts, lockers, staff offices and a new entrance and lobby. Because of the two-phase process of the expansion, Harmon said she is lucky to not have to close the facility to students completely, but can block off certain sections. The first phase is expected to be done in fall of 2016, and the second phase in 2017.
