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The University of Utah Opens New 180,000 Square Foot Recreation Center

Taylor Hayes
The Student Life Center's new 6 lane, 50 meter pool.

The University of Utah’s Campus Recreation Services opened a new Student Life Center on Monday. 

The 180,000 square foot facility is replacing the former field house as a supercenter for student and faculty recreation. The project has been in the works for 12 years and cost approximately 51 million dollars to complete. Some of its key features include a 15,000 square foot fitness center, 3 pools, racquetball courts, and a 4-story climbing wall. Bobby Perkins-Mcintosh works in the climbing area and says students are thrilled when they come in. 

“A lot of people that come to this university come because of the outdoors, come to ski or come to climb. So the fact that we now have a climbing wall is pretty cool," Says Perkins-Mcintosh. "You can already tell there’s a community building up of people that come here to climb.”

The center now also houses the Outdoor Adventure’s rental shop where students and staff can rent gear for a multitude of activities including camping, skiing, ice-climbing and whitewater rafting. Julian Gomez is the marketing director for Campus Recreation Services. He hopes the new center will be a gathering place for students, even when they aren’t working out. 

"You know there’s a lot of spaces within the building for studying, for doing homework, for relaxing, there’s a lot more to the building than just recreation. We want it to be a hub where they can come and basically do a lot of the things that they would, you know, maybe normally do in their dorm room," says Gomez.

The center is free to all students. University employees can purchase memberships for six months or a year. 

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