Marquette University will open its new wellness and recreation center in January 2025, joining a expanding quantity of greater ed institutions that have combined mental and physical overall health inside a single facility. The $80 million project entails renovating the Helfaer Tennis Stadium and Recreation Center, constructed in the 1970s, for a new, updated version such as overall health sources like counseling solutions and a healthcare clinic.

A 2021 study discovered students returned to campus just after remote instruction due to COVID-19 simply because they could participate safely in recreation center activities, interact with their peers and generate a network of close friends.

What’s the will need: Students at Marquette have expressed a will need for expanded recreation and fitness facilities for years, says Lora Strigens, vice president for arranging and facilities management at Marquette. The notion for an integrated wellness and recreation center, nonetheless, started with the university’s master strategy in 2016 and started to make progress as a priority for becoming a healthier campus grew.

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“We recognize—as numerous institutions do—that caring for the entirety of a student is not just their academic accomplishment, but their thoughts, their physique and, for our institution, their spirit,” Strigens says. “I come across it difficult to separate the notion of students’ accomplishment from the notion of wellness, specially post-pandemic.”

In addition to the overall health and wellness solutions the new facility will offer you, it will be a space for programming to boost neighborhood and a sense of belonging, Strigens says.

What it is: The new space will be 180,000 square feet, doubling the wellness, counseling and healthcare space on campus and escalating fitness and recreation capacity by 25 percent.

A 3-story, 30,000-square-foot wellness tower in the facility’s center will residence the healthcare clinic and counseling center, as properly as space for the alcohol and drug recovery plan, sexual violence prevention programming, and meeting spaces. On the recreation front, the facility will have two multipurpose courts, 4 tennis courts, 4 basketball courts, a 25-yard swimming pool, two group fitness studios and a cycling studio.

Marquette authorities chose to renovate the Helfaer center rather than generate an completely new structure.

“In addition to it becoming seriously excellent programmatic projects … it is also a quite fascinating constructing project, I feel, maintaining the two substantial volumes of space that residence our tennis courts and basketball courts,” Strigens says. “It’s a sustainable choice by the university, each financially and environmentally, and then it offers us the chance to seriously generate this marquee facility on the web site.”

Moving all overall health and recreation sources into 1 constructing also consolidates touch points for students to engage in wellness. “The target is for us to make it as simple as doable for students to access the solutions and the assistance that they will need,” Strigens explains.

The leading two floors of the wellness center will be identified as the Lovell Center for Student Wellbeing, named just after Marquette’s president Michael Lovell and his family members, due to his commitment to student wellness and mental overall health.

The facility is funded by donor gifts, the institution and a student wellness charge, which has been in spot because 2016.

Feedback and input: When designing the space, the project group received feedback from a wide variety of stakeholders, such as student affairs, the healthcare clinic, counseling applications, recreation and fitness authorities and, of course, students.

The recreation and fitness space, for instance, is developed to be made use of by all students spanning all levels of expertise, comfort and engagement. The outcome is a wide variety of versatile spaces and unique programming.

As the project continues, Marquette will continue to solicit student input on furnishings and branding.

“We want them to really feel represented in the space, and we want it to really feel, as campus is their property away from property, that it is a space that they really feel comfy and welcome in,” Strigens says.

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