The new state-of-the-art facility will promote learning from professional trainers and encourage students to make decisions that directly affect their current and future wellbeing.

The facility will provide expanded space for students to practice positive lifestyle behaviors and assist in fulfilling their needs for physical activity and recreation.

The proposed building is designed to offer students ready access to expanded wellness and recreational services and provide much needed space for Student Health Services and the GCSU Counseling Center.

The $29 million, 100,000-square-foot facility proposed for construction on the West Campus would add needed space for expanded student fitness, recreation and intramural sports and would relocate student health services and the student counseling center under one roof.

The building will be designed to reflect a holistic approach to campus health and wellbeing. It would afford students the opportunity to use integrated wellness services that focus on the main components of wellness: physical, emotional, intellectual, socio-cultural, environmental and life-planning health programs.

The proposed wellness center, to be built using student activities fees, has the full support of Student Government Association President Zachry Mullins.

“This is a project of major proportions that will add facilities for student use, position our university at the forefront of the wellness initiative among our sister institutions and fill the student desire for adequate wellness and recreation facilities,” Mullins said.

Architects Menefee+Winer will present the project specifics to students during the SGA meeting during the 12:30 Wednesday, Sept. 30 in Dogwood Conference Room. The SGA could vote as early as that meeting to adopt the $175 fee to fund the project.

“I encourage my fellow students to weigh in on this important decision by using the legislative process and contacting their SGA Senator,” Mullins said.

SGA representatives have been involved with the proposed project during its three-year planning stage. Students as well as faculty and staff serve on President Dorothy Leland’s Campus Wellness Planning Committee appointed two years ago. The committee is charged with assessing campus wellness needs and developing a plan that includes the wellness center to meet those needs.

“The center will provide wonderful recreation and wellness opportunities for our students,” Leland said.

Georgia College is committed to a holistic approach to campus wellness, said Dr. Sandra Gangstead, Dean of the College of Health Sciences.

“We’re interested in providing students lifelong health and fitness activities,” Gangstead said. “And by placing both the Student Health Services and Counseling Services inside the new center, we are working with holistic wellness in mind.”

The Center

Construction on the wellness center could begin as early as April 2010. The building is scheduled to open in Fall 2011.

An aquatic center will feature a competitive-size indoor pool that would allow Georgia College to compete aquatically with other universities. The center also will offer pool time for water polo and volleyball and other intramural sports while providing exercise opportunities and aquatic therapy for swimming laps and swimming for leisure.

Basketball and volleyball courts will offer additional intramural teams and competition.

Students could burn off stress tackling the climbing wall. Classes of Yoga, Tai Chi, aerobics and Pilates will organize inside the exercise rooms.

The center will offer social spaces, personal training, extreme sports, outdoor recreation, cardiovascular workouts and a food and juice bar.

The project calls for the center to be certified by LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) utilizing “green” principles,’ the first on campus.

To obtain LEED certification, the building must address six major areas: sustainability of the site; water efficiency; energy and atmosphere; materials and resources; indoor environmental quality; and innovation in the design process.

“The LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification process begins with design and may be observed through the choice of materials, the efficiency of systems operations, and a healthy environment in which to learn and work,” said university project manager Mark Bowen. “Designing the facility to meet LEED certification requirements demonstrates the university’s commitment to reduce the negative impact facilities make on our environment. LEED certification will enable us to identify and measure specific components of this facility that promote healthy living by sustaining a healthy environment.”

The center would be an extension to today’s wellness center located in The Wellness Depot, a renovated historic train depot on West Greene Street.

The depot was originally constructed in 1853, burned by Union Gen. William T. Sherman in 1864, and rebuilt in 1865. It holds special significance to Georgia College because the train that stopped at this depot in the 1920s was known as the "Beauty Special" and later the "Peach Special," named for the female passengers who were Georgia College (then Georgia State College for Women) students.

Georgia College purchased the depot from Norfolk Southern Railroad in 1989.

The facility offers exercise equipment in two rooms. The cardiovascular room contains eight treadmills, six elliptical trainers, three stair steppers, two recumbent cycles, and an upright cycle. The weight room includes free weights as well as machine weight stations to work all the major muscle groups.

The Wellness Depot records 61,000 students visit annually, with daily use topping 550 students.

“The students outgrew the depot center before it opened,” said Dave Terrell, Director of Wellness Programs. “The historic significance of the building prohibits us from enlarging outside walls, limiting our square foot available. At the busiest times of the day, some students turn around and leave because they can’t get on equipment right away. “

The new wellness center also would match or better student-funded wellness centers constructed during the past five years at Clayton State University, North Georgia University and West Georgia University.

Columbus State University recently broke ground on a 100,000-square-foot facility funded with student fees. And Georgia Southern University recently completed a 90,000-square-foot addition and remodeling of their center as well.

SGA President Mullins encourages students to show their school spirit and support the center.

“Not only do we need the expanded space for recreation, exercise and fitness,” Mullins said, “but it also is a matter of student pride. What a great mark and legacy we can leave for the students who follow us at Georgia College.”