The new Student Life Center, located near the Marriott Honors Community, will open Jan. 12, 2015, with a broad array of services available to students.
Case Turner, co-manager of Outdoor Adventures, said the center was constructed to benefit the student population.
“[The center is] for students, by students, worked for by students and paid for by students,” Turner said.
At over 180,000 square feet, the building has been under construction since summer 2013.
Shireen Ghorbani, communications specialist of facilities management, said she hopes it will become a “hub” for the student community, like the Union building.
“Students can come and congregate and socialize as well,” Ghorbani said.
According to the website, “amenities” will include three pools for either leisure or laps, a large indoor hot tub, a spa, an indoor 320-yard running track, a 10-foot bouldering wall, a four-story climbing wall, a 15,000-square-foot fitness center, an outdoor fire pit, five sport courts, racquetball courts, four group fitness studios and a combatives room.
The center will not only serve as a place for recreational activities, but it will also have study nooks, Freshens Café, a Center for Student Wellness and a University Federal Credit Union.
Turner said Outdoor Adventures and Recreation is currently located near the Red Butte Gardens but will relocate to the Student Life Center.
“It will be a nice, professional fun center,” Turner said.
Ghorbani said she is hoping for the Student Life Center to promote student involvement in outdoor activities as well.
“In some ways the whole intention was it will be a place for wellness and other activities that connect students to the experience of the outdoors,” Ghorbani said.
The fate of the Einar Nielsen Field House is not so positive. The Field House will close Dec. 31 of this year. The use of the Field House is still in discussion, but Ghorbani said the building is one of the oldest on campus and facilities are outdated.
“The need [for improvement] has been identified for many years,” Ghorbani said.
The building will no longer be a place to work out, but it will stay on campus and be used for something else.
Hunter Crabtree, a freshman in political science, said the new building has been promoted very well.
“I am worried about it being too packed,” Crabtree said. The whole idea of it makes it seem like a hangout because there is going to be so much to do in one place, Crabtree said.
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