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Student Recreation Center celebrates its one year anniversary with Spring Kickoff

Jonathan R. Diaz

January 23, 2013

Student Recreation Center celebrates its one year anniversary with Spring Kickoff

SRC — McArio Del Castillo, liberal studies major, practices on a punching bag at the Student Recreation Center. He loves that the facility offers a boxing studio and that using a boxing gym somewhere else would cost hundreds of dollars, he said. The Student Recreation Center celebrates its one year anniversary Thursday. Photo credit: Charlie Kaijo / Senior Photographer

Students, faculty and alumni will celebrate the Student Recreation Center (SRC) one year anniversary, Thursday, through a University Student Union Spring Kickoff, featuring contests, prizes and a signature yoga class.

Jimmy Francis, director of the center, said he is proud of the accomplishment of opening the building.

“I think we’re doing a good job of serving our target market which is the CSUN community,” he said.

The SRC opened at the start of Spring 2012 and had a total of 17,359 members by that March 1. By the end of Fall 2012, 24,367 members were registered at the center, said Francis.

The center is open to students, faculty, staff, alumni, and guests. For students, membership is part of tuition, costing $133 a semester with an $6 inflation fee each academic year. Faculty and staff membership costs $163 per semester with incremental inflation fees as well. Daily guest passes are also available for $10 a day.

The SRC is a 118,000-square-foot facility which offers fitness zones, group exercise studios, a rock-climbing wall, gymnasium courts and and indoor jogging track.

Francis cites open recreation and group exercise classes as the most popular features of the SRC. This semester, 68 hours of group exercise classes will be offered per week, he said.

The building itself has won seven awards for architecture, design, and sustainability, including LEED Gold Status. To achieve LEED Gold Status, a building must demonstrate energy-saving lighting and controls, water-saving faucets and fixtures, and reduced construction waste, among other criteria. In 2012, the recreation center also won the Pacific Coast Builders Gold Nugget Award for greenest sustainable commercial project, recognizing the SRC for complex energy-conserving designs.

“What’s really exciting about the number of awards received is how they’re based a lot on architectural significance,” Francis said. “Of course, receiving the award of LEED Gold certification was an unbelievable accomplishment. It’s humbling.”

The SRC has also been praised by students for its services.

“This place is spacious and clean. The rock wall is so cool,” said sophomore Bria Lee.

Sophomore Kiara Walls, who previously worked out off campus, enjoys using the stationary bike.

“Compared to Planet Fitness, this place looks like a resort,” she said.

Alumni are also invited to come back use the facility at a discounted rate.

Crizam Carlos graduated in 2011 but continues to use the center. He not only uses it for himself, but is also a group exercise instructor.

“I use the dance studio a lot because I’m a part time dancer,” he said. “I teach there, I work out there. I spend a lot of time on the dance floor.”

Compared to other gyms Carlos said, “The SRC is in the top tier of all the gyms I’ve been to and worked out in.”

Despite the accomplishments, Francis said he would like to see increased enrollment from faculty and staff.

“We’re currently doing a survey of faculty and staff and asking them some questions to better understand some barriers to joining.”

As the SRC celebrates its anniversary, advancements are still in play. The projects include the addition of a 125,000 square-foot Outdoor Artificial Turf Field east of the building in the G4 parking lot. The field will be geared toward sport club use, open recreation, intramural programming and events that will also be lit for nighttime use.