The Hadley Family Recreation & Well-Being Center — a much-anticipated, world-class campus recreation venue dedicated to enhancing and supporting the health and well-being of the University of Michigan community — is about to open.
The facility, located at the former site of the Central Campus Recreation Building, is planning a soft opening June 17. The soft opening summer hours will be 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week. Around the time of the fall semester, the building will expand to open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily, closing at 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
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The project, first approved in September 2018 and then paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, cost approximately $165 million and joins the North Campus Recreation Building and the Intramural Sports Building as Michigan Recreation’s comprehensive recreation centers.
As the university prepares for the Year of Human Health and Well-being in its Look to Michigan vision campaign, the opening of the Hadley Center is an example of the campus commitment to well-being and is welcome news to the university community and Michigan Recreation and Student Life.
“The opening of the Hadley Family Recreation & Well-Being Center marks a significant investment in the student experience at Michigan,” said Martino Harmon, vice president for Student Life. “The Hadley will help fuel student success by creating new opportunities for our campus community to recharge, build community and thrive. I cannot wait to see how our students make the most of this incredible new facility.”
Designed by the architectural firms of RDG Planning and Design and Integrated Design Solutions, the 200,000-plus-square-foot facility offers five levels featuring a wide array of equipment and amenities for swimming, running/walking, strength, fitness and cardiovascular training, basketball, volleyball, badminton, racquetball, squash, wallyball, group exercise, spin cycle studio, sauna, steam room, turf court and climbing and bouldering walls.
“The Hadley Center is an excellent example of the interconnection between the dimensions of well-being. We know that every member of our community is at their best academically, professionally and personally when they have access to spaces and programs that support physical health and a strong sense of belonging,” said Rob Ernst, the university’s chief health officer and associate vice president for health and wellness in Student Life.
In addition to the physical benefits provided by the equipment, the building supports users’ mental health with a mind and body studio, wellness equipment, and social spaces for users to recover and relax. Each of the five floors features natural light and ample space for exercising, socializing and exploring the mind-body connection.
“That is probably as intentional a component as anything,” said Mike Widen, director of Michigan Recreation. “Students are coming here because they want to connect with people. The sense of community built here will be just as important as building physical health. We wanted this facility to be intentional about that, which is why it was important to have well-being in the name. It’s not just a recreation center.”
How to join
Enrolled U-M students can access the Hadley Center and all Michigan Recreation facilities without any additional charge or memberships. U-M students who were enrolled in the previous winter term maintain access through the following spring/summer terms. Faculty and staff can purchase a membership. Current membership rates are $35 per month or $380 per year for U-M faculty and staff.
Widen said the primary focus is to serve U-M students, faculty, staff, alumni and retirees.
Once inside …
People will enter the facility through the main entrance off the Pitt Family Plaza and into the Samantha & Ross Partrich Entry on the second level, or 1M (1 mezzanine). On that level are a reception/check-in area, conference and office space and strength and fitness areas, and the Luptak Family Foundation Lounge.
One level below is the aquatics center, the climbing center, racquetball and squash courts, strength training equipment and a multi-purpose room.
On level 2 — the middle level — are functional fitness areas, locker rooms, the Michigan Gymnasium, personal training studios, more strength, cardio and fitness spaces, multi-purpose rooms, an indoor turf field and a sprint ramp that leads to the track on the floor above.
On level 2M, visitors will find the cycle studio, track and additional strength, cardio and fitness space.
The Josephine Tsao Mind & Body Studio, Wolverine Gymnasium and more strength and fitness areas occupy the top level, or 3.
Visitors will notice ample space for exercise and fitness but also for social connection and natural light in nearly every area.
“We wanted to create social spaces throughout the building that it’s not just treadmills, gymnasiums and pools, but it’s a place for students and members to connect,” Widen said. “With the amount of natural light in the space — we wanted to create visual connections from space to space but also from inside the building to outside the building to help encourage people to enter.”
Climbing center
Inside, people likely will first notice the massive climbing center that features space for three unique climbing experiences, including a 52-foot wall for top-rope climbing.
“We believe this to be among the tallest walls in a campus recreation center in the country,” Widen said.
An instructional wall that rises about 20 feet high allows for top-climbing exposure and practice before taking on the main structure, which features colored routes of varying difficulty. The routes will change regularly, offering new challenges.
The limited-height bouldering walls provides a climbing experience without the need for a harness, and the compound also includes a section for speed climbing, which Widen said is the first known campus recreational building with such a feature.
“This is one of the most comprehensive climbing experiences you’ll see in any campus recreation center all across the country,” he said.
When the facility opens June 17, only the bouldering wall will be available for users as Widen said Michigan Recreation is in the process of hiring and training climbing instructors, which will likely occur in the fall.
Once fully operational, users will check-in at a counter to confirm they have taken the required training to climb and can also rent equipment, such as climbing shoes and a helmet.
Aquatics center
Within the aquatics center are three different pools at three different temperatures serving three different purposes. One is a nine-lane, 25-yard lap pool but is not designed to be a competitive event swimming space.
The recreation pool is slightly warmer and is 3-4 feet deep with three additional lap lanes. Additionally, it includes a circular vortex area with jets that can shoot water in a circle to enable people to either run against or float with the current.
The recovery pool features the warmest water and jets designed as a space to both recuperate after a workout or simply socialize. There are also steam and sauna rooms off the pool deck, and each pool has zero-depth entry ramps and lifts for access.
A massive video board would allow for movie screenings or game watch events.
“The CCRB pool was only a lap pool and there were no windows, so there was no opportunity for natural light,” Widen said. “This new aquatics center is a big leap forward in our aquatics experience.”
Strength, fitness spaces and multi-purpose rooms
Eleven different spaces throughout the building feature areas for strength, cardio and fitness — each a different size with different purposes and types of equipment.
Some include lighter weights and more privacy with space for stretching, walking treadmills and other small equipment.
“We created these neighborhoods of spaces purposefully so we could promote inclusion where we’re not one big space where we have hundreds and hundreds of students working out together,” Widen said. “We created smaller neighborhoods of spaces that can connect with students regardless of their level of fitness.”
The lower level has much of the heaviest equipment and a floor that can tolerate heavy weights being dropped on it.
Additionally, the building features six multi-purpose rooms, including three with wood floors, and others with turf. One includes garage doors that can close to create a space for a Group X circuit class with technology for a leaderboard system so circuits can get tracked throughout the class.
Gymnasiums, the track and the sprint ramp
Widen said 95% of the time, the smaller Michigan Gymnasium space on the south end of the building will function like a gymnasium with basketball, volleyball, badminton and pickleball. But it can also serve as an event space and host hundreds of people — and with the larger Wolverine Gymnasium on the top level, gym court activities can continue there.
In the center of the Michigan Gymnasium is not a Block M, but the state of Michigan.
“We said, for this one, let’s do something different so we put the state there,” Widen said. “Every wood floor in the building comes from wood in the Upper Peninsula, so it’s all locally sourced from within our state.”
The Wolverine Gymnasium features three courts and U-M branding with “Wolverines” along a sideline. Additionally, a vending machine allows people to swipe their MCard and check out a basketball or volleyball and return it once done, rather than trek back to the 1M level to check out a ball. Large gray court dividers can be dropped to separate the courts, as needed.
The long loop of the track — which goes 1/8 of a mile — runs overhead the Michigan Gymnasium, but if an event is occupying the space, doors can close the long loop off and only the short loop — which is 1/10 of a mile — can remain in use.
A turf sprint ramp — one of the many features added directly from student feedback through benchmarking trips to other recreational facilities — allows for a different workout dynamic in addition to the track turning left and right.
Mind and body studio
The Josephine Tsao Mind & Body Studio is on the top level, outside of which sit quieter equipment such as cardio and walking treadmill desks. The studio space features grand views of campus — stretching all the way to State Street.
“You can see a long way up here,” Widen said. “Just imagine a class going on at night, with our ability to do different colored lights at the top.”
Notable firsts
On level 2 is a turf court, which is surrounded by clear dasherboard walls and a netting system that prevents projectiles from getting out. The space could be used for drop-in recreation and programmed recreation, such as indoor soccer.
Also for the first time in Michigan Recreation history, a building has a dedicated room for cycling classes. The studio has 25 bikes, an upgraded sound and lighting system and connected leaderboards.
Accessibility and inclusivity
The Hadley Center accommodates individuals with different abilities by creating inclusive environments that support a wide range of physical, sensory and cognitive needs.
The facility’s design includes accessible entrances, elevators, wide pathways, accessible restrooms and locker rooms.
Additionally, the building includes multiple levels of adaptive fitness equipment, such as accessible machines, hand cycles, pool lifts and ramps, or modified strength-training equipment.
Two sets of locker rooms each include three different options — women’s, men’s, and inclusive. The women’s and men’s locker rooms are the traditional gendered locker rooms. The inclusive locker rooms are available for anyone who does not want to use a traditional gendered locker room or just simply wants an individual locker room experience. The inclusive locker rooms have multiple individual spaces for restrooms, showering and changing.
Sustainability
The Hadley Center is on track to achieve LEED Platinum certification, the highest standard awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council, making it one of the most sustainable buildings on the U-M campus.
Sustainability features include:
- Building systems are designed to greatly reduce reliance on steam and cut fossil fuel usage in half when compared to a traditional building.
- Strategically placed windows provide ample natural light that filters through nearly all of the activity areas throughout the building.
- Approximately 100 solar panels are installed on the roof to generate on-site renewable energy.
- Energy-efficient features such as high-performance glass, increased insulation, and window shades will result in approximately 20% less energy use than a standard building.
- Native, drought-tolerant landscaping requires no irrigation.
