Rec center planning to include neighbors, city
A KU student runs around the suspended track at the Student Recreation Fitness Center, which is planning a $6.1 million expansion. File/University Relations
KU will ask residential neighbors and the city to serve on a building advisory committee to assist with plans for a $6.1 million addition to the north side of the Student Recreation Fitness Center.
The tentative timetable calls for construction to begin in June 2006
and be completed by July 2007.
University Place Neighborhood Association will be asked to appoint
two representatives, and the Lawrence city manager and the chair of the
city Recreation Advisory Board will be asked to each appoint one representative.
These individuals in addition to three university representatives will
be formally charged in March and will begin meeting while a committee
chair, an architectural consultant for the project, is selected.
“
A neighborhood advisory committee worked very well in helping design
a new scholarship hall compatible with the Ohio Street area,” said
KU Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor David Shulenburger. “We
want to follow the same procedures with this building addition in order
to take into account neighborhood ideas and sensibilities.”
Creating a building advisory committee follows the protocol established
in a city-university land use agreement, recently negotiated and
endorsed by a committee appointed by the mayor of Lawrence and the
KU chancellor.
It was approved by the university and has been submitted to the City
Commission for consideration.
The 44,000-square-foot expansion would add four basketball courts
for a total of eight and three racquetball courts for a total of
five,
and double the free weight space. The elevated indoor running track
would
be lengthened to a quarter mile.
The current facility has 98,500 square feet. Built in 2003, it
was funded with $17 million in student fees. KU Athletics Corporation
is funding
the addition as payment for 1,200 student-section seats in Allen
Fieldhouse that the Student Senate agreed to let KUAC sell to the
general public.
An architect should be named by June, after the project receives
formal authorization from the state.