SOUTHSIDE
REC CENTER
COMING IN 2022
Rec Sports is expanding, again! Aggies are excited to see the groundbreaking of the new Southside Rec Center. The vision to expand Rec Sports across the Texas A&M campus has been in the works for some time with the building of the Polo Road Rec Center. To see the expansion efforts continue with another addition is an amazing accomplishment for Rec Sports. The vision and desire to grow has been inevitable for the Department of Recreational Sports over the decades. When the Student Recreation Center opened in 1995, there were about 41,000 students attending Texas A&M. Today, the campus serves nearly 65,000 students. To accommodate the consistently growing student body, Rec Sports was strategic in convincing more than fifty percent of students who voted in a 2018 referendum to vote in favor of increasing the Rec Sports fee. The referendum passed, providing the funding needed to build two new satellite recreation facilities.
The mission “to promote activity, wellness and development by providing high quality, inclusive experiences and facilities for the students and community of Texas A&M University” continues with the expansion of the Southside Rec Center, expected to be complete in 2022. The new Southside Rec Center will be a 2-story building complete with basketball courts, a group fitness studio, cardio area, indoor/outdoor turf area, weightlifting area housing many machines, and a bouldering wall. Located on Bizzell Street, the nearly 63,000-square-foot facility will offer a pretty well matched ratio of facility size to students. In addition, the Southside Rec Center will be accessible from any location on campus via a roughly 10-minute (or less) walk. Opportunities for student employment will increase once again with the opening of the Southside Rec Center. With the Department of Recreational Sports already being the largest student employer on campus, Rec Sports is ecstatic to offer even more positions for student staff, making them part of the Rec Sports family. RECLIFE MAGAZINE | PAGE 7
