Q&A: Recreation Services closes for one week over summer break

Recreation Services provides many different services and programs to students. Throughout the years, many changes have been made to improve what the Recreation Center has to offer, but over the summer it will be closed in order to make some major improvements to the facility. It will be closed for one week. Director of Recreation Services Troy Vaughn said that the improvements will have an impact on students who use the recreation center.

Q: Will the Student Recreation Center-North be closing down to students over the summer?

A: Yes, there is one week we requested and gained approval for the least-used week, after summer commencement and before students start back up in the fall.

Q: When exactly will the Student Recreation Center-North be closed?

A: We will be shut down on Monday, July 30 and re-open on Monday, Aug. 6.

Q: Will the Student Recreation Center-South be closed as well?

A: No, the south rec will be open the time the north rec is closed. The summer hours will be Monday through Friday 5:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday noon to 7 p.m.

Q: What changes will be made?

A: There are three major projects that are going to be done. A new floor will be put in the weight room. We are doing extensive work to the aquatic center, including installing ultraviolet cleaning systems in all the pools. All the water will pass through and assist with cleaning and disinfecting the water. The third project is new curtains for the east gym. The curtains will divide more space in the gym.

Q: Why do you have to close the north rec down?

A: Replacing the flooring in the weight room will require us to move all the machines to where all the cardio machines are, preventing weight lifters and cardio users to not have access to the machines. Putting all the weights on the gym floor could possibly cause damage to the flooring. The revisions in the aquatic center will require us to drain all the water in the pools.

Q: Have you ever had to close down the north rec before, or will this be the first time?

A: No, this has never been done before, and my understanding is before I came to Southeast it hasn't either.

Q: How are the improvements being funded and how much will it cost?

A: There are different funding sources for each of the projects. The aquatic center project is being funded by remaining dollars left over from when they built the center back in 2008. The curtain project and flooring project are being funded through what we call the rec center reserves. If I don't spend as much money as I bring in, then the money goes into a savings account. It's not funded directly from student fees, but I'm sure there is student money in there somewhere. The aquatic project is costing $220,000, the curtain project is costing around $60,000 to $70,000 and the flooring project is costing around $130,000.

Q: Do you think the improvements being done are a must?

A: There are needs and wants. The improvements are certainly wants, but if we don't do the wants now they will eventually become needs and will have to be done at some point. The floor is in bad shape from all the pounding it takes. We have to be compliant with the Virginia Graeme Baker Act, which is a federal legislation with the aquatic center, so by law we must fix the drain in the pools. The ultraviolet system will increase safety, cleanliness and help the air. The curtains that are there now are the original curtains that were put in the building when the building opened in 1986. They are ripping and we have to do a lot of repairs to them.

Q: Will students recognize that you have made improvements?

A: When students leave the day before we close and come back when we reopen it will be like a night and day difference. The improvements that are going to be made will make the gym much more usable. We won't be gaining space but making the existing space we have much nicer, safer and appealing for our students to use.