Students shared mixed reactions to upcoming renovations of the John Wooden Center.

The John Wooden Center’s construction will take place in different phases, with the first sequence beginning this fall and concluding in winter 2027, said Erinn McMahan, the executive director of UCLA Recreation, at an Aug. 20 Undergraduate Student Association Council meeting. UCLA will mitigate the loss of exercise space by providing alternative locations within the John Wooden Center, Drake Stadium, Pardee Gym, the Student Activities Center and the Los Angeles Tennis Center.

The renovations are set to conclude before 2028 when Los Angeles will host the Summer Olympics, and UCLA will host the Olympic village, McMahan added. The project aims to seismically renovate the building, add more activity space, expand weight training spaces and renovate the exterior of the building, according to the UCLA Recreation website.

The renovations will cost $35 million, according to the website of the Plant Construction Company, who was awarded the project.

“There was a period about a year ago and before that we believed, based on what we were aware of from the architects and engineers and Capital Programs, that the John Wooden Center would have to close completely for the duration of the project,” McMahan said. “That is no longer the case.”

The first sequence, beginning in November, will renovate racquetball courts 2-4 and squash courts 5-6, which are intended to free up space to allow for later mitigations, McMahan added.

The loss of the racquetball courts will impact dance clubs that use the space to rehearse, said Amber Brown, the FITWELL program director who oversees the management of the John Wooden Center.

Zoë Heidersbach, the co-director of programs for Ballet Company at UCLA, said in a written statement to the Daily Bruin that registered dance clubs already had to compete for limited space in the John Wooden Center before renovations began, though her club was able to secure rehearsal space for the fall quarter.

“We were able to get the studio space we wanted so far this quarter, but we are concerned about future quarters or the possibility that the situation may change unexpectedly in the middle of the quarter,” Heidersbach, a fourth-year biochemistry student, said in the statement.

The second sequence will begin in January 2025 and see closings of the Loggia, the event lobby and the entry lobby, added Brown. She said the closing of the Loggia will also reduce the capacity of Collins Court, Wooden’s basketball court, to under 500 people, which UCLA Recreation plans to mitigate by using “other John Wooden Center and Recreation spaces.”

The weight room will begin construction in April 2025, with an expanded weight room opening at Drake Stadium to serve as an alternate space, McMahan said. Yates Gym will also begin construction in May 2025, a process coordinated with UCLA Athletics to take place during the gymnastics team’s offseason, McMahan added.

Collins Court will begin construction in June 2025 and conclude in December 2025, McMahan said, with the mitigation plan including altering the floor of Pardee Gym to allow for basketball.

Pardee Gym, which hosts fitness classes as well as Open Rec club sports, will begin construction in December 2024, according to a written statement from UCLA Recreation. Students can use the Student Activities Center, the upper concourse of Drake Stadium and Pauley Pavilion for activities that normally take place in Pardee Gym, although space is limited, said Brown.

“We had some input over this (sequencing timeline) and we’ve given feedback, but largely these were determined by the contractor in the order in which they believe it’s best to address these,” McMahan said.

McMahan said the benefit of sequencing the construction is that it will allow for spaces to open up once they are completed, such as the newly expanded weight room, which will be available in 2025.

He added that there is currently no plan to change the John Wooden Center membership fees during the duration of the project.

“We believe we can mitigate much of the impact to students,” McMahan said.

Daniel Limas, the president of UCLA Boxing, said his club will be able to practice at the John Wooden Center for the fall quarter but lacks the funds to move operations off campus once their space becomes unavailable.

“We’re in a situation where if we don’t recruit enough members, i.e. we don’t get enough funding for this quarter, then the next quarter if campus is closed, things get a lot more complicated for the future of our club,” he said.

Limas, a fourth-year sociology student, said renting space at outside boxing gyms is too expensive for the club. While he hopes to reserve space at Drake Stadium for the club to practice, he also said he fears he will be competing with many other club sports for the limited space.

Limas added that he hopes the renovations will expand the number of available punching bags on campus, which currently stands at two in total.

Andrew Wang, a captain of UCLA Badminton, said he worries that upcoming renovations to Pardee Gym, where UCLA Badminton practices and competes, will impact his club’s ability to host the Bruin Open, a yearly badminton tournament open to college and high school students that generates most of the club’s revenue. However, the club was able to move the date of this year’s tournament to avoid the beginning of the construction, he added.

Wang, a third-year computer science student, also said his club’s contingency plan is to move operations to the Student Activities Center once space in Wooden becomes unavailable. However, he added that he worries the move will affect his club’s attendance and ability to operate, as they will have to spend two hours every practice setting up and deconstructing badminton nets.

Moving operations off campus is also unfeasible, he said, because the only available courts are in the San Gabriel Valley, which presents transportation challenges to the members of the club.

“Practice is looking a bit rough,” he said. “The officers are still discussing exactly what we want to do.”

However, Jay Patel, a graduate student of dentistry, said he is optimistic about the upcoming renovations because overcrowding at Wooden has been a consistent problem since he was an undergraduate student at UCLA.

“Crowding is really a big issue, and that issue is only going to be exacerbated in the short term with the renovations,” he said. “In the long term, I think they’re really addressing these issues, which I think is great.”

Patel added that in order to better facilitate communication related to the renovations, students should be able to opt in to emails that are relevant to them rather than receiving every email sent to the whole campus, many of which are irrelevant to students, he said.

Catherine LaFramboise, a second-year cognitive science student, said she hopes the project focuses more on improving the functionality of the John Wooden Center rather than its appearance. She added that she hopes UCLA could partner with LA Fitness to provide students with an alternative workout space.

LaFramboise also said she wants the renovations to address the overcrowding issues of the facility, which can deter students from exercising when the duration of their workouts are impacted due to equipment wait times.

“Expanding facilities so that it can better accommodate the size of the school and the amount of students who really enjoy working out there is great,” she said.