building designer, the project manager and two students made 13 trips to manufacturing plants in places such as Chicago and Seattle to watch the assembly process and learn in-depth about each machine.
At Precor, the group signed a waiver promising not to disclose products they viewed that haven't been released yet, Chappell confides.
Life Fitness, Stairmaster, Woodway. Concept II and Hammer Strength — the five chosen ones — are among the most prevalent machines found in the 100,000 square-foot facility. The extensive aerobic area is so, well, extensive because that is what students wanted according to the polls. With so many treadmills, stepping machines, ellipticals, stationary bikes and weight machines — well over 100 — there is only a small space dedicated to free weights. Not surprisingly, that area is congested with men, while the women tend to occupy the cardio machines.
"It's too close together and there are only three flat bench presses," Tanner Fanello, Derby senior, says of the modest iron-pumping area. Chappell says she and other administrators are open to suggestions. The way the facility is set up is by no means the way it has to be, she says.
A lot more change is to come. Anyone who has been to the rec center will notice about half, maybe even less, of the center is open for use. The four basketball-turn-volleyball courts, two racquetball and squash courts, the martial arts and aerobics studio, and the locker rooms are not finished. But after five false starts, and a three-month delay, it seemed that students were going to start pounding down the doors.
The University has been collecting the $62 per student every semester since Fell 1998, of which all has been going to the center. Students who have paid this campus fee, and the $31 summer fee, can use the center for as many semesters or summers as they pay for. Chappell hasn't heard of any other University implementing this system of reciprocity.
With so many eligible students and graduates, turn-out has been good. The center counted 2,000 people on the first night, and although the raw smell of recently finished construction is intoxicating, with the center's popularity, soon it'll probably just smell like sweat.
—Sara Behunek, Jayplay writer, can be reached at sbehunek@kansan.com
Aaron Showalter/Kansan
The new Student Recreation Center features a three-story rock climbing wall. Instructors hold climbing instruction sessions daily for those new to the sport.
8 jayplay
thursday, october 16, 2003