The University of North Florida’s Student Wellness Center held a ribbon-cutting ceremony last Wednesday to commemorate its reopening on Jan. 11 after the two months of renovations that caused it to close last November.

According to Kacie Smith, the assistant director of fitness and Student Wellness Center operations, several walls, including two fitness studios, were repainted, and murals were added on the first and second floors.

New carpet and rubber flooring were installed on the second floor, and soundproof insulation was added to prevent as much noise from reaching the fitness studios downstairs.

Various machines were moved around to accommodate the nine new squat racks on the second floor. Smith said Recreation and Wellness pushed for these extra squat racks because they so commonly ran out of them, leaving students waiting long periods.

A few older cardio machines were traded in for new ones, but Smith said the Student Wellness Center will see even more updated equipment soon.

“We were in a spot where, while this project was going on, we couldn’t receive new equipment. Now that this project is over, we can move to the next phase of receiving some of the stuff we’ve been planning for,” she said. “There will be some new and exciting stuff in the next few months.”

Smith said the process was lengthy because equipment throughout the second-floor gym had to be moved around while the floors were redone.

“This area where we have our squat racks took the longest because that part of the floor is four layers thick, and then they had to install the squat racks on top of that, and then we had to move everything, so it was about seven weeks long,” she said.

The Student Wellness Center is now open from 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekends. Updated information and group fitness schedules are on the Recreation and Wellness website.

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