With a flip of their golden shovels, Alexander Gonzalez and campus officials broke ground on the new Recreation and Wellness Center on Oct. 1.

Campus leaders from past and present attended the ceremony and took turns speaking, praising Gonzalez’s leadership on the project and looking forward to its completion.

“Two years and we will be standing in the Recreation and Wellness Center,” said Meredith Dinnie, chair of the University Union board of directors. “How cool is that?”

The event is a milestone for the project, which had been proposed in some form as early as 1999. A referendum calling for a fee increase was put forward that spring for a new recreation center and narrowly failed.

Students tried again the year after. This time they failed by an even wider margin.

“The no vote pretty much said, ‘Didn’t you listen to us last spring?'” said Leslie Davis, University Union director.

The project was revived in 2003 when Peter Ucovich, former executive vice president of Associated Students, Inc., suggested revisiting the idea. He and Davis worked to solicit student input on the project.

They pulled students randomly out of the University Union to survey them on desired features in the new building, reeling them in with the promise of a free lunch. “We probably bought pizza for over 1,500 students,” Davis said. They sent out 28,000 surveys.

In spring 2004, Ucovich, then the president of ASI, and Davis met with President Gonzalez and student recreation groups to decide whether to pursue a third referendum. They did, and a majority of students agreed to levy a $110 a year fee on themselves to construct the $70 million facility.

At this point, Davis said, they took a different approach. In previous years, they had hired consultants to communicate with students and push for the referendum’s passage. This time, they chose not to retain their consultant, who was eager to help with the upcoming campaign. Davis said that would have been contrary to the project’s goals of providing a student service.

“If students want it, students will sell it to themselves,” she said.

When Gonzalez arrived at Sac State, he incorporated the project into his Destination 2010 plan, which calls for upgrading and adding new campus facilities and services to create a better image of the university and attract more students. To do this, he said, it takes student services and not just academics.

In a dark mahogany frame inside Gonzalez’s office hangs a conceptual map of a campus that is far in the future — even farther away, he says, than Destination 2010.

Buildings labeled in green on the map are already complete. The periphery of campus is dotted with purple structures on the map, which are incomplete, and in nearly all cases not yet funded or near construction.

Pictured are the Science II building, complete with planetarium — recently postponed indefinitely after funding dried up, Parking Structures IV and V, high-rise dorms with views of the American River, and a green corridor from J Street to the library, that includes the demolition of Douglass, Calaveras, and other decrepit structures in between.

Gonzalez said that in time, all of this will make Sac State a “destination campus” that draws more students and is perceived better throughout the state. Part of that is now closer to becoming reality.

He said these ambitious changes are guided by channeling the will of students.

“That’s what they want, and that’s what they deserve,” Gonzalez told the audience.

Events continued on the site of the new building, between Hornet Stadium and the practice fields, throughout the day. A BMX stunt team performed jumps off of ramps that had been assembled next to Parking Structure III, and live music from The Pets and the Taiko Dan Japanese Drumming Ensemble drew crowds at midday.

Roger Xiong, senior psychology major, said that while he was looking forward to running on the building’s indoor track, he was not sure the project was necessary after watching the groundbreaking.

“I think that it’s a great thing, but at the same time I think that maybe the money could have been spent somewhere else, updating old classes, for example Douglass Hall, some of the older classes, they have problems,” he said.

Other students did not have the same concerns.

“I’m just glad we’re building it,” said Derrick Santens, senior marketing major, who will graduate in December. “The fee hikes that we have to pay I think are fair because I only have to pay them one or two semesters, so it’s cool for me.”

Cyndra Krogan, a health educator specializing in alcohol, tobacco and drugs, says that she expects the Recreation and Wellness Center to make more students aware of the health services available on campus. Many of them do not utilize the services due to their isolated location on the north end of campus, she said.

“So many students tell us that they don’t even know that our services exist until they’re seniors and maybe they get internships with us,” Krogan said.

The new facility is larger and will be able to handle more students. It is also unusual because the health facilities are combined with the recreation center. Sac State would become the only California university to merge both health and recreation facilities, and may be even the only university in the country. Krogan said it creates the potential for synergy between doctors diagnosing health problems and the exercise facilities and personal trainers that are right next door.

“Obesity is a really big problem among Americans and part of that is our lack of exercise,” Krogan said. “Well, we don’t have adequate exercise facilities on campus.”

Athletics, especially the football team, can use separate facilities in the new Broad Athletic Complex. The general student body has fewer options. Krogan said that the only exercise facilities currently available on campus are a cardio weight room and a weight room in Yosemite Hall, but these are only open from 6 to 10 p.m. because it is used as a kinesiology lab during the day. The equipment is also not modern, she said.

Current facilities also have limited room for classes like yoga and tai chi. A yoga class this semester runs Wednesdays from 5:10 to 5:50 p.m. because of the demands on the existing facility. The new building will minimize these kind of time constraints.

“That really gets in the way of student service,” Krogan said.

It is this sense of frustration that led to Destination 2010. Ron Richardson, director of Facilities Services, said that the groundbreaking shows that the plan is not empty words.

“It’s their way of letting the students know that there’s really something going on here… it’s kind of, ‘Hey, we really are doing something on this, it’s not just talk,'” he said.

The new facilities are expected to ease Sac State’s commuter school stigma by becoming a student destination. Gonzalez said that one measurable definition of a destination campus would come from admissions information.

“We’re going to have a reputation in pride and programs that students will want to come here,” he said.

Davis said the new building would affect admission levels upon its completion.

“It’s going to be a reason some students choose to come to Sac State,” she said. “I sincerely believe that.”

Sam Pearson can be reached at [email protected]