Students arriving this weekend on the Bowling Green State University campus will be able to start the new
semester bright and early Monday with a trip to the newly renovated Student Recreation Center.
After a year of work, the center is ready to open with a couple floors filled with new workout equipment,
and a color scheme from the thread in the carpeting to the Falcon logo on the new basketball courts that
screams school pride.
"One of the goals of building is to make you feel like you’re at Bowling Green State
University," said Steve Kampf, assistant vice president for student affairs and director of
recreation and wellness.
The center has not always been a source of pride, he said.
About six years ago the recreation center was taken off the campus tour for prospective students. Kampf
said the 1979 building paled in comparison to what students would see at Kent State, Miami or Akron.
That was a turnaround for what had been a milestone building.
BGSU’s center was "the first student funded, stand-alone recreation center in the country," he
said.
But age dulled the sheen of that historic accomplishment.
Now after the year-long $17 million project, the center is ready to shine again.
That’s important not just because the BGSU community will have a new place to work out.
Kampf said the studies he has done show that recreation facilities help recruit, enroll and retain
students. A student who visits the campus recreation center at least 10 times a year "has a better
chance to return the next year."
The center renovations are designed to make the place more welcoming from the finger vein identification
center, to improved LED lighting to the grand staircase that climbs up the center of the building.
The first and second floors are packed with new equipment. Kampf said he wanted to use as much space as
possible, creating areas with functional training stations in areas away from the ranks and rows of
equipment.
BGSU spent $635,000 on state of the art strength and cardio training equipment, he said. For example, it
has doubled the number of treadmills.
The gear will work muscles students never thought they had in all manner of ways.
Don Szabo, a community member who uses the center and offered advice as part of a focus group, said he
was impressed with the result of the project.
The center had been "old and tired," with machines wearing down to the point of not being
particularly functional.
Now the equipment offers "something for everybody not just your muscleheads," he said.
The renovation also means completely redone locker rooms with private showers and a new sauna. The Cooper
pool was emptied and the bottom repainted and the Andrews Pool had all its woodwork upgraded.
On the bottom level are a number of new rooms for fitness classes.
There’s a lot the public won’t see, Kampf noted. The heating and ventilation infrastructure and plumbing.
Every space has new more efficient fans.
"We put a lot of money into air handling system," he said.
The center has expanded a bit, from 180,000 square feet to 200,000 square feet. Some areas have been
downsized. Racket ball, no longer as popular as it was in the 1970s, now has seven courts, not 14. That
space will be used for group instruction rooms and storage.
The center is offering a range of membership options for the BGSU and BG community. Visit
www.bgsu.edu/recwell
