Into the belly of the beast

Alex Accetta couldn’t help but show his enthusiasm on a recent hard hat tour of the new recreation center, scheduled for completion in January 2010.

“I’m super excited about this space,” Accetta said while describing the exercise rooms on the fourth floor.

Accetta, director of campus recreation at Portland State, has visited over 20 college recreation centers, attended several conferences, and is confident that Portland State’s new recreation center will be among the best when complete.

The building will also house the city of Portland archives on the sixth floor and in the basement, as well as the university’s school of social work. Funding for the archives and school of social work are being provided by the city of Portland, Portland Development Commission and the Oregon University System.

The chancellor’s office for the Oregon University System will also be located in the building on the fifth floor. The rest of the building will be partially funded through student fees.

Last week, Accetta went before the Student Fee Committee to present the 2009-10 budget for the recreation center. The SFC will deliberate on the budget in the upcoming weeks, and Accetta invited members of the committee to see the development of the construction process.

The Pool
“This is what we are getting the most questions about,” Accetta said.

Manufactured in Italy, the pool made its way through the Panama Canal and Columbia River before being installed in the recreation center. The lap pool is 25 meters long, has six lanes and is about seven and a half feet deep.

Located on the second floor, the pool is in the northeast corner and will be accompanied by a hot tub. The locker rooms will be close by, and there will be a family changing room in addition to the men’s and women’s locker rooms. Day lockers will be provided for free, and some lockers will be available to rent on a long-term basis.

Indoor Track and Courts
On the fourth floor will be a suspended track overlooking the basketball courts, which will be surrounded by a wall of windows that line the northwest, west and southwest sides of the track.

Below the track on the third floor, there will be two basketball courts and one multi-purpose court with a rubber floor.

“The rubber court has very similar biomechanical attributes to a wood court, but it allows us to do a few different programming options like soccer, hockey, etc,” Accetta said.

On the north side of the courts will be a deck overlooking the streetcar line and Urban Center.

Exercise Rooms
On the east side of the fourth floor will be an area for cardio machines, two exercise rooms, and a 26-foot climbing wall. The university has partnered with a company called ReRev, which harnesses kinetic motion from the use of exercise machines and converts it into clean energy, feeding it into the electrical system.

Accetta and Miles Roofter, architect for the project from the firm YGH, noted that Portland State is one of only a few universities in the country that are utilizing this technology.

The two rooms will triple the capacity of the current space used for exercise classes in the Scott Center. With the wall of windows to be installed, students will have an almost unobstructed view of Mount Hood when exercising.

Classrooms
After touring the third floor, which will be accessible 16 hours a day with free and circuit weights, Accetta showed the group where additional classrooms will be constructed in the west end of the second floor.

There will be four classrooms, as well as a lobby for students. Going down the stairs to the first floor, an additional lobby and a 250 person capacity auditorium are under construction.

The lobby on the first floor will be the single point of entrance to the recreation center, and it will be furnished with chairs and tables, as well as a rotating display of artwork.

Acetta envisions the first floor lobby as a space where students can study, eat or simply relax and wait for the streetcar. The Outdoor Program office will also be housed on the first floor, where students will be able to rent camping equipment.

Retail
According to Accetta, there will be seven or eight retail spaces available in the building. The future tenants have not been disclosed, and calls to the university’s finance and administration department regarding the retail spaces were unreturned.

During the tour, Accetta said that there will be healthy food options available, and there is a possibility that the student operated Food For Thought Café, currently located in the basement of the Smith Center, will have an opportunity to be located in the new recreation center.