$46 Million Fitness Center Planned for University of Nevada, Reno

The University of Nevada, Reno, is scheduled to begin construction in June on a 110,000-square-foot fitness center.

The $46 million E.L. Wiegand Fitness Center will address students' appetites for health and fitness programs that the existing recreation center no longer can meet.

Jim Fitzsimmons, director of campus recreation and wellness at Nevada-Reno, notes that the existing facility, the Lombardi Recreation Center, was built in 1974, when about 4,000 students were enrolled on campus. In addition, the building was designed to support physical education programs rather than fitness and wellness training.

Forty years later, the university has 22,000 students, and a greater percentage of those students, as well as prospective students, want access to more fitness opportunities at the schools they attend.

"We've done a tremendous amount of renovations over the years," he says. "We're just scaling it up. It won't be new programs, just more of what we were doing on a larger scale. We're tripling the space."

Plans call for the new center to have multiple fitness areas for weightlifting, training and many other fitness classes and activities, plus an indoor running track. Three full-court gymnasiums will be available for basketball and other indoor court sports. It will be open to students, faculty and staff.

Funding for construction of the center will come from student fees, university borrowing and private gifts, including an $8 million donation from the E.L. Wiegand Foundation.

The facility is expected to be completed in late 2016 or early 2017. The architect is WORTHGROUP Architects & Designers.