UTEP Breaks Ground on $32 Million Fitness Center Expansion

Roughly 300 Miners and guests attended the ceremonial groundbreaking for the $32 million expansion of UTEP’s Swimming and Fitness Center at 3124 Sun Bowl.

The 90,000-square-foot addition will include a 1/8-mile indoor running track, a rock-climbing wall, an expanded exercise area, an indoor soccer arena, racquetball courts, and a multipurpose room for basketball and volleyball.

The expansion will be funded entirely through an increase in the student recreation fee, which UTEP students approved in a 2006 referendum. It was authorized by the State Legislature during its 2007 session.

The project should be completed by spring 2011.

“This is a gift that is being passed forward to fellow students who they will never meet,” Richard Padilla, Ed.D., vice president of student affairs told the crowd, many of whom wore special T-shirts that marked the occasion.

The project also will involve renovations to the existing swimming and fitness center and improvements to the outdoor field to include lights and synthetic turf.

UTEP President Diana Natalicio told the crowd that this student-driven project was another example of the University’s growing appetite to improve in aspects beyond academics.

After the speeches, Natalicio and members of the project’s planning committee ventured into the adjacent sand pit that used to be a volleyball court. It was decorated with the types of exercise equipment that could be used or rented at the new center, including sports balls, kayaks and camping gear.

The group took ceremonial golden spades and turned several shovelfuls of sand before breaking for a traditional miner “bean feed” of hot dogs, chips and sodas. Pantastic, UTEP’s steel drum show band performed.

Alex Muñoz, Student Government Association president, said the groundbreaking celebrated the will and commitment of everyone in the UT System, especially the UTEP students who led the charge.

“This is an example of the hard work and involvement of our students,” he said.

The current recreation center opened in August 1996.

Take a virtual tour of the new recreation center: http://www.vimeo.com/3838888.