UC Gets Ready to Unveil $113M Rec Center

UC Gets Ready to Unveil 113M Rec Center
It hasn't been an easy project.

There were all those odd angles and random round skylights punched into the roof, not to mention the sheer size of the building - 350,000 square feet of thrilling and complex architecture.

The $113 million University of Cincinnati Campus Recreation Center has been the toughest job of Dale Beeler's career.

"By a long shot," Beeler, a senior architect with local firm KZF Design Inc., said as he walked through the belly of the massive building.

"I think I lost most of my hair doing this job."

But there's good news for Beeler's hairline: The rec center's almost finished.

Scheduled for completion this month, the building - which has dorm rooms, a food court, six basketball courts, an Olympic-size pool and a climbing wall - is to open Feb. 6.

And so the construction fences that have blocked a major pathway across campus are coming down.

UC's $250 million MainStreet corridor - an east-to-west stretch across campus that included the $26.2 million Steger Student Life Center and the $50.8 million Tangeman University Center - will finally be finished.

Students can at last get a glimpse inside the expensive and expansive rec center, the project of a big-name California firm, Morphosis, whose principal architect, Thom Mayne, won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in June.