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After a little over a month of walking past the dust and cacophony of the Rec Center construction zone to get to my classes, I’ve lately had to remind myself that it’s for a good cause. The Buff Up the Rec initiative, a project that will substantially expand the campus recreation facilities, is alive and kicking. And boy, is it kicking.
Even though I wasn’t able to vote for the initiative, having arrived on campus a year after the fact, I have only supportive feelings towards it. The students who are going to be paying for the project in fees for the next 25 years probably won’t be able to complain either, because pictures of the rec’s projected final appearance look pretty rad.
What I wish I had been here to vote against, however, is the swanky new buffalo-shaped leisure pool that will be rolling into town with our new spin machines.
While the elimination of one swimming pool from a $63 million project would have little to no effect on my paltry $125 student fees every semester, I can’t help but feel that this pool is absurd.
The whole purpose of the Buff Up the Rec initiative was to provide health-minded Boulder students with expanded and improved recreation facilities. This was not only a desirable project, but a necessary one: recreational space per student right now is at least 30 percent below the national average, while physical activity per student is 10 percent above it. So please, by all means, pimp my gym.
The outdoor pool, meanwhile, is being described as a “leisure pool.” Call me crazy, but when I stepped outside today, getting into a swimsuit and jumping into a pool seemed like the least leisurely thing imaginable.
Outdoor pools are traditionally open in the summer months, between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Even though summer classes are a thing, CU is most populated during the fall and spring terms. This means that, in theory, the buff-shaped leisure pool would be getting the most traffic during the very time period when it would be unusable.
Since CU prides itself on its sustainability initiatives and awareness, the pool is also an uncharacteristically extravagant development where environmental awareness is concerned.
This disparity, as well as a comparison to the functional developments taking place inside the Rec Center, the buff-shaped leisure pool begins to look like less of a fun commodity and more like large, chlorine-filled pit of uselessness.
The only thing this pool seems to do (if indeed it does anything at all) is undermine the validity of the otherwise admirable Buff Up the Rec project.
We set out to ensure that students today and in years to come were provided with the resources they needed to look after their health and fitness, not to give campus a makeover.
Contact CU Independent writer Lauren Thurman at Lauren.thurman@Colorado.edu
