Inside Furman is published quarterly by the Furman University Department of Marketing and Public Relations. For story ideas, e-mail John Roberts, editor.
Stuck in the '70s
While much of the campus has undergone extensive renovations in recent years, the Lay Physical Activities Center has been in a time warp.
Its linoleum floors, cinderblock hallways and paneled ceiling echo an era when students shooting hoops in the gymnasium wore striped tube socks and thigh-exposing shorts.
To be sure, the PAC has undergone some cosmetic upgrades. Last year, plasma televisions were installed in the fitness center. Portions of the interior have also been painted and carpeted in recent years.
But the make-up has done little to mask the age of the 62,400-square-foot building. During heavy rains, the basement floods and the roof leaks. In 2003, fragments of the porch ceiling broke loose and fell 40 feet to the ground. Thankfully, no one was on the porch at the time.
While modernization is the mode for most campus buildings, the PAC remains stuck in the 1970s. It's not even included in the Admissions campus tour.
“They don't bring them here,” says Health and Exercise Science professor Bill Pierce. “The students would see a facility that is most likely not as nice as the facility at their high school.”
Pierce, HES chair, is heading a committee that helped to craft a major renovation plan that could begin a year from now, in January 2008. Although the scope of the project has not been determined, the most basic plan calls for doubling the size of the fitness center, adding a sports medicine office and renovating and refitting classrooms, offices, locker rooms and the dance studio.
The plan also calls for transparent walls to be added overlooking the fitness center and basketball court, giving the revamped and renovated PAC a more open feeling.
This project, estimated to cost $6.5 million, also calls for renovating the pool area and upgrading the heating and cooling systems. While the design would create more space for the fitness center and a sports medicine office, it would eliminate three (of six) handball courts and one of two basketball courts.
The Bryan Center for Military Science, an addition to the building in 2000, would be unaffected by the renovation.
A more expansive $10.5 million renovation plan would double the size of the gymnasium through an addition to the west (soccer field) side of the building. Plans for a second-story mezzanine overlooking the basketball court and fitness center are included in the more ambitious plan.
Pierce says the breadth of the project will be determined by fundraising. Like the library, Townes Science Center and Furman Hall, construction will be completed in phases so that the building can remain functional. Faculty and staff will be relocated to a temporary building located between the PAC and Stone Soccer Stadium.
The PAC attracts a diverse group of faculty, staff, retirees and community members. In 1994, the university began selling memberships to the PAC. The cost of an annual membership (non-alumni) is $350. There are approximately 300 paying PAC members, says Pierce.
During a typical school month, the PAC will receive approximately 15,000 visits. Of those, roughly 10,000 people use the fitness center, which, despite its size, is well equipped with modern aerobic and weight machines. To compare, the library logs about 48,000 visits during the same period.
Pierce agrees that renovations to the PAC are long overdue. Many of Furman's peer institutions have long since expanded or renovated wellness centers to meet growing demand and student expectations.
“Today, many students arrive at college having been a member of a sports club at home,” he says. “So they arrive on campus with those kinds of expectations.”
PAC facts