This post was updated Sept. 2 at 7:36 p.m. 

From the Olympians making their mark in Paris to the intrepid newcomers making their first jaunt up the Death Stairs to the Hill, exercise is a central part of the UCLA experience.

UCLA’s gym facilities received over 1 million visits during the 2021-22 academic year, according to data obtained by the Daily Bruin from UCLA Recreation.

For many enterprising gym-goers on our campus, the John Wooden Center is the facility of choice for strength training and cardio exercise, accounting for nearly 60% of those annual visits. It also hosts a variety of athletics-based clubs and student organizations alongside UCLA’s gymnastics and volleyball teams.

Thus, reports of major disruptions to the Wooden Center’s operations due to a renovation project beginning in October are deeply concerning for many Bruins.

An email to the UCLA community from Erinn McMahan, the director of UCLA Recreation, stated that the construction at the Wooden Center will principally focus on building new weight-training areas, seismic renovations to reduce the potential impacts of future earthquakes on the facility and cosmetic upgrades to the building’s exterior.

While many of the goals of the renovation are laudable, especially the efforts to make strength-training equipment more accessible and to reinforce the building to better handle seismic activity, the project raises serious questions and potential issues for the large portion of the campus community that relies on the Wooden Center as their primary gym.

All Bruins, regardless of how often they attend the Wooden Center, are entitled to transparency and support from UCLA on this matter, especially since the university has not indicated any plans to waive or reduce the $37 Wooden Center fee students pay annually.

While the facility will remain partially open throughout the renovations, sections of the building will be closed off during several phases of construction, limiting available space for exercise machines and other amenities for current gym-goers.

The renovations also present challenges to the operations of the many student-run clubs that regularly use the Wooden Center to host practices and other events. At the least, part of the issue is the lack of information or support that some clubs have received since plans for construction were announced.

Daniel Limas, the president of UCLA Boxing, said UCLA first contacted his organization about the renovation project last September, but there has been little follow-up from UCLA Recreation. The club now faces the prospect of being forced to move off-campus due to the partial closure of Wooden.

Much of the communication and public information surrounding the renovations has been unclear, particularly regarding how the center and UCLA Recreation’s operations more broadly will adapt during the partial closures.

A section of the webpage dedicated to providing updates on the renovations, for example, obliquely states that “spaces will be mitigated for alternate program use during various phases of space closures.”

For many club sports, the impacts of the new renovation project may unfortunately represent another hurdle in a long line of difficulties in working with UCLA Recreation’s club sports program.

The lack of clarity on how campus operations will shift is particularly important for gym-goers at Bruin Fitness Center, which principally serves student residents to the Hill.

One potentially dramatic ramification of closing parts of the Wooden Center might be an increase in the number of students who go to BFIT instead, possibly leading to overcrowding in an exercise space that already feels small relative to the over 14,000 Hill residents who are expected to share the gym.

Similar crowding concerns, although potentially on a smaller scale, may also affect the operations of the Kinross Recreation Center, the off-campus gym complex reserved for UCLA graduate students, faculty and staff.

But these disruptions won’t just affect workout-minded Bruins in the short term. The renovation project is currently scheduled to finish in early 2027.

And, if it’s anything like the seismic renovation project at Powell Library, which was supposed to be completed by February of this year, construction may drag on well past the original deadline.

Given the long-term impacts of partial closures to the Wooden Center, the university must be transparent about potential disruptions and proactively provide alternative on-campus exercise spaces to accommodate our community’s needs.

The Wooden Center is a critical resource in the day-to-day lives of many Bruins: an exercise facility that lacks some of the elevated costs and financial barriers that private gyms can impose on their members.

But this renovation project, despite the benefits it may bring to future students, may well interfere for several years with the aims of the Wooden Center as first expressed by its namesake.

According to the email sent by McMahan, John Wooden refused to have his name adorn a campus building unless it was open to all students.

If the Center will remain partially open, then UCLA must ensure that the parts of its mission that will be impeded by the renovations will still continue on campus.

Olympians or not, we all pay the same fees to access the Wooden Center every year and deserve the same privilege to exercise, train and play in a space that’s comfortable for us.