VCU Board of Visitors’ Executive Committee Approves University Master Site Plan Amendment

By Pamela DiSalvo Lepley
Division of University Relations

The Executive Committee of the Virginia Commonwealth University Board of Visitors today approved an amendment to the 2004 VCU 2020 Master Site Plan to reflect the adjustment of the plan’s border based on land acquisition and to include more details of the Cary Street Recreation Center plans.

Construction of a multi-activity recreation complex at the site of the Cary Street Gym on the university’s Monroe Park Campus includes a 100,000-square-foot, $43.3 million addition to the existing 25,000-square-foot Cary Street Gym, which also will be renovated. The facility is scheduled to be complete in 2009.

University officials say there is a pressing need for more student recreation facilities at VCU, the state’s largest university with more than 30,000 students. The recreation center is the outgrowth of the past two university master site plans, which in 1996 and again in 2004, laid out the plans to enhance the university’s recreation facilities at the Cary Street site.

The Executive Committee’s action today updates the 2004 Master Site Plan with revised plans for the center that include more details on the project and adjustments to the border of the facility site, including a property at 911 Green Alley, a tract that was not owned by VCU in 2004. As planning for the recreation complex has progressed, the need to include the property became evident in order to provide a facility of sufficient size to meet program needs.

The recreation center complex will be funded solely by student fees. Preliminary designs for the facility reflect the best program standards in higher education – multi-activity centers with pools that offer a wide range of recreational options at one location.

For more information on the recreation center plans, visit http://www.vcu.edu/insidevcu/0705reccenter/.