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UO rec center work nearly done

The Columbian
Published: January 6, 2015, 4:00pm
2 Photos
University of Oregon students swim Monday in the new 12-lane lap pool, foreground, and play in the recreational pool at the Student Recreation Center on the campus in Eugene, Ore.
University of Oregon students swim Monday in the new 12-lane lap pool, foreground, and play in the recreational pool at the Student Recreation Center on the campus in Eugene, Ore. The 16-month construction project cost $50 million and added 110,000 square feet of building space to the student recreation center, bringing its total size to 280,000 square feet. Photo Gallery

EUGENE, Ore. — University of Oregon officials describe the school’s revamped student recreation center with two brief words: “Wow factor.”

From the student lounge flanked by a rock-climbing gym and 32-television-screen “media wall,” to the new swimming pools and hot tub, from added basketball courts and two-story locker rooms to a new cardio area with views of Hayward Field and the Coburg Hills, students who walked through the rec center’s main entrance Monday found few signs of what it looked like just a month ago.

As crews put the final touches on the $50 million overhaul during the first day of winter term, there were more than a few awed faces and dropped jaws.

That’s just the sentiment school officials hoped for when construction started in August 2013.

While the Oregon Legislature authorized a $50 million bond to finance the project, UO students will repay it over time through increased incidental fees, which fund numerous campus programs and groups.

Students voted overwhelmingly to approve the project, said Molly Kennedy, the university’s assistant marketing director.

Monday offered them a first chance to check out what they’re paying for. Few seemed disappointed.

“Students feel the energy of the facility,” Kevin Marbury, the university’s director of physical education and recreation, said. “There is a little bit of a ‘wow factor.’ “

The 16-month construction project added 110,000 square feet of building space to the rec center, bringing its total size to 280,000 square feet, more than twice the square footage of the downtown Eugene Public Library. Renovations were also done to the 40,000 square feet of the existing building, creating new cycling, yoga and group exercise rooms, as well as new weight rooms.

The sections of the building even have their own names: “Uptown,” for the top-floor cardio and weightlifting areas; “Midtown,” for the main floor, which includes the lobby, rock gym and rooms for fitness classes; and “Downtown,” for the aquatics facility.

The existing fitness rooms, basketball and racquetball courts in the Esslinger Hall complex have been renamed “Old Town.”

A 1999 expansion allowed the rec center to accommodate roughly 3,500 visitors a day. But for years the center has seen 4,500 to 5,000 come through on a typical day. Students have long complained of fierce competition for exercise equipment and courts.

Kennedy admitted officials were a bit anxious that students would be disappointed. “But the comments we’ve gotten from students so far has reassured us.”

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