While it may be home to sweaty, grimy bodies on the inside, the Beauchamp Recreation and Wellness Center looks different from the outside. One year after its opening, the words “stunning, beautiful, thoughtful and sophisticated” were all used to describe the recent addition to campus.
The Beauchamp Center received one of 10 “Facilities of Merit” awards from Athletic Business last month. HOK Architectural Firm from Kansas City, Mo. and Soderstrom Architects from Portland will be honored at the Athletic Business Show in Orlando, Fla. in November for their work on the building.
And according to Director of Recreational Services Brian Dezzani, the awards and recognitions for the Beauchamp Center may not stop there. Dezzani is looking forward to this year’s announcement of the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association awards, saying he thinks the Beauchamp Center will be among the award recipients. The winners are scheduled to be released in February 2017.
The rec center has not only been recognized by outside organizations — students acknowledge the positive influence it has had on the University of Portland campus as well, especially those who have flashbacks of Howard Hall, which was built in 1927 and will soon be demolished to make way for a new academic building.
“(Howard Hall) was kind of worn down, but I still went every day because it was the only one we had on campus,” senior biology major Meagan Macalalag said. “I feel like (the Beauchamp Center) has gotten more people to come because it’s nicer, more welcoming and much cleaner.”
Howard Hall averaged 700 users per day compared to the Beauchamp Center, which now averages 1,200 each day, according to Dezzani. And he says he intends to get more through the doors as students become more comfortable coming to workout, aided, he says, by the center’s welcoming staff.
Junior nursing major Kapua Jinbo says she thinks the Beauchamp Center has brought better overall health to The Bluff.
“It’s way better (than Howard Hall), more modern, bigger, and better quality,” Jinbo said. “I think people come more often because there’s definitely more cardio.”
Additional space in the Beauchamp Center is an improvement Dezzani emphasized as well. The indoor track was added to accommodate for Oregon weather, and more equipment was brought in to fill the 73,000-square-foot facility.
Along with added space came a larger budget, which allows students and staff involved with recreation to be paid more. Two more staff members were added alongside Dezzani, including someone dedicated solely to outdoor recreation.
“We had great programs before, though we were somewhat limited by our budget and by the facilities and the staffing, which was just me,” Dezzani said. “Now we have two more people, and someone that’s fully outdoors. That was something I’ve wanted for a long time.”
Among the two new added staff members is Liz Winters, whose role handling fitness classes at the Beauchamp Center has increased the variety of classes available, such as meditation, cycling and yoga.
While the recreation center has been recognized nationally for its beauty and more awards are eagerly anticipated, Dezzani says you can still find a few sentimental students cozying up in what is left at the old Howard Hall.
“One of my Howard staff members from 2001 works with (Bon Appetit) now, and sometimes I still find him lingering around some of the old equipment that we didn’t carry over to Beauchamp,” Dezzani said.
