Groundbreaking for new Rice Recreation and Wellness Center set for April 22

Groundbreaking for new Rice Recreation and Wellness Center set for April 22

BY JENNIFER EVANS
Rice News staff

Rice University will break ground for the new Rice Recreation and Wellness Center at 3 p.m. April 22. All members of the Rice community are invited to attend the ceremony, which will be held at the northwest corner of Alumni Drive and Laboratory Road, across from Janice and Robert McNair Hall.

COURTESY RENDERING

This location for Rice’s new recreation facilities — adjacent to Rice Memorial Center, the central quadrangle and the north playing fields — is a key part of the university’s plan to provide the spaces and facilities that will cultivate vibrancy on campus and foster the sense of community, one of the objectives for Rice’s Vision for the Second Century.

The two-story, 103,000-square-foot facility will have two indoor basketball courts, two outdoor basketball courts, four racquetball courts, two squash courts, cardio and weight areas, a dance studio, a 50-meter outdoor competition pool and a 2,500-square-foot outdoor recreation pool. The facility, which also will be the new home for the Wellness Center, is scheduled to open in August 2009.

More information about the new recreation center — including a virtual tour of the building — is available at the Construction Information Center, located at the corner of College Way and Alumni Drive. Information also is available online at http://projects.rice.edu.