Although students often complain about construction on campus, it is doubtful that many will protest the upcoming construction of the new fitness center.
Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster said that Bowdoin is close to hiring the architectural firm Cambridge Seven Associates, which designed Kanbar Hall and the renovated Searles Hall.
The new fitness center will be around 13,000 square feet, almost triple its current size.
Foster said that Cambridge Seven has already come to Bowdoin to evaluate several spaces for the new fitness center, including the current athletic offices and the old squash courts. The tops of those spaces were also evaluated because there is a chance to build vertically as well.
"We talked to them about the program and fitness space, weight space, and the possibility of incorporating a climbing wall in the project," Foster said. "They have a detailed overview of the number of machines desired and the square footage estimates."
Another meeting with the architectural firm will most likely occur after Spring Break.
"They are going to share their preliminary ideas and will want to have meetings with people in the community to hear their ideas about what kind of space would be interesting to them," said Foster.
At this time, there is no concrete timeline for when construction on the fitness center will begin or finish.
"We're still raising money for the project," said Foster. "We've had some success with the fundraising, but we still have more to do."
Foster said that a new fitness center is a high priority for development.
"We're envisioning beginning the design process while simultaneously fundraising. There's a chance we may have to pause the project to have fundraising catch up, but we are aggressively moving forward," he said.
As for the space that is now the Watson Fitness Center, Foster said that there are many possibilities for the space.
"Anytime you have a space like that, that is prime space in the middle of everything, we have to consider any number of things that could potentially go there," he said.
While preliminary conversations have taken place, there have been no official meetings about the space.
According to Foster, since "it's the very heart of campus...and a place where there is lots of traffic, it makes sense to be somehow related to student life and the student experience. The really nice thing about the new fitness center is that is opens up a really key space in the center of campus. There are all kinds of possibilities."
Bowdoin has also taken steps to add a rock band practice room, as the current space would be used by the new fitness center. An acoustical engineer evaluated a number of spaces on campus, including basement space in first-year dorms and the current football offices.
It was found that the best place for the new practice room would be the current football office, located at the bottom of the stairs near the union entrance.
"The reason is that it's easier to insulate for sound traveling up than sound traveling down," Foster said.
It's a space, he said, that could "function with a lot of energy and life in the middle of campus."
In news on other construction sites around campus, Bowdoin hopes to begin building the new hockey rink this July, and finish in late September of 2008.
Scott Meiklejohn, vice president for planning and institutional advancement, said that Bowdoin is currently waiting on permits to begin construction.
"It's a multi-step process where we have to obtain permits from the town of Brunswick, from the state fire marshal, and the [Maine State] Department of Environmental Protection [DEP]," he said.
Meiklejohn said that in obtaining the necessary permits, "a couple of steps go quickly, and a couple can take awhile, particularly the permit from the DEP. We don't know yet how long it will take?it could take a number of months."
Meiklejohn added that while they hope to have construction finished in September, the rink won't be in use until December 2008.
"It's sort of like building a big machine. You have to start it up, make the ice, and test it," he said.
According to Director of Capital Projects Don Borkowski, the Walker Art Museum "is on schedule to be occupied by staff later this month."
"Artwork will begin to be moved in in May and will be completed in August for the start of the Fall '07 semester," Borkowski wrote in an e-mail.
Borkowski also said that the Recital Hall is scheduled for completion on March 30, and that the first concert "is being scheduled by the music department for May 3."