No gym renovation in sight

With the recent addition of Whitman College and the ongoing construction of numerous academic buildings like the Frank Gehry-designed science library, students will see world-class improvements in campus facilities in upcoming years — for most aspects of their student life.

One aspect of student life where substantive facility improvements are still strongly needed, however, is at Dillon Gym.

Dillon was constructed in the 1940s for a significantly smaller male-only student population, and it is now bursting at its seams. The building's physical size limits its ability to accommodate the current University community's campus recreation needs. While the University administration has supported numerous generous cosmetic and functional renovations to Dillon, such as resurfacing the four-court basketball surface and redesigning the heavily used spinning room, the gym still desperately needs more physical space.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that the current walls of Dillon aren't large enough to accommodate the size of the campus community in 2007," Director of Athletics Gary Walters '67 said. "The University has been very accommodating in attempting to increase the efficiency and space utilization of the current structure, and while that helps as a current stopgap measure, the reality is at some point, in order to address the health, wellness, fitness and recreational needs of the broader campus community, there's going to have to be a substantial expansion of Dillon."

The 2004 final report of the University's Task Force on Health and Well-Being — intended more as an internal document than anything else — cited the needed expansion of the Dillon facility. Last academic year, the Administration sponsored a campus-wide follow-up survey, asking students and faculty for their input in making improvements to campus recreation.

Though the survey provided the administration with a snapshot of the University community's preferences, no significant enlargement of Dillon Gym is planned in the short term. Ultimately, the decision to expand Dillon would need to come from the upper tiers of the administration, including President Tilghman, Executive Vice President Mark Burstein, Provost Christopher Eisgruber '83 and Director of Development Michele Minter.

"The reality is [that] the University has so many projects either under development or under consideration, or in some cases under construction now, that the plans to construct an addition to the [Dillon] facility have been postponed for a while," Vice President for Campus Life Janet Dickerson said.

Still, even if major construction improvements have been postponed, the Administration continues to receive ongoing input as to needed shorter-term improvements to the existing facility. Faculty and staff users have expressed a desire to bring towel service to Dillon, for example, while many users have requested renovation of locker room facilities.

Also, well-equipped fitness facilities opening on Route 1 have the potential to draw some users away from more-crowded Dillon.

"As we get more competitors [like local fitness centers] on the outside ... I know that for us to attract not just the undergraduate and graduate students, for whom distance is an issue, but to attract the faculty and staff and others, we really need to make upgrades," Dickerson said.

Dillon expansion would allow the building to better accommodate the burgeoning student, faculty and community demand for fitness space in particular. The Stevens Fitness Center — the most heavily used part of Dillon Gym — is simply too small to house the equipment needed to meet demand, as illustrated by the long queues to use treadmills and other equipment at peak hours.

"Ultimately we probably need a space that's roughly three times the current capacity of Stevens just to address the fitness and weight training needs," Walters said.

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Any eventual expansion most likely would occur south of Dillon into the "pit" area occupied by a cluster of trailers known as Dillon Court East and Dillon Court West. This fortunate positioning of a large undeveloped swath of land directly adjacent to Dillon could enable the building to grow both outwards and upwards.

Additional space would enable Dillon Gym to reduce its current practice of relying on the gym floor space for so many purposes. The four-court basketball area — generally used as a recreational facility for basketball, badminton and other activities — must currently double as a venue for some varsity athletic competitions. Princeton converts the courts into volleyball courts for men's and women's varsity volleyball games and into wrestling mats for wrestling meets. An expansion could create separate facilities within the Dillon complex to house these varsity competitions.

With no major improvements expected in the next few years, however, the administration will continue to monitor suggestions for improvement coming from students and staff. Campus recreation will have to make do with cramped quarters until an administration-led campaign begins to overhaul the facilities through a major construction effort.