“It's appropriate to have separate spaces, especially in this day and age, for the safety of children and protecting them from predators and making sure that we're providing safe spaces for them as well as their families,” Townsend says. “There's not that awkward, uncomfortable situation of having small children in a place where they don't belong.”

Although the Southtowns Y has five locker rooms, the Almaden Valley Athletic Club (AVAC) in San Jose, CA, has six. The AVAC has one each for men and women, one for boys and girls up to 16 years of age, and boys and girls locker rooms in the AVAC's indoor swim school.

Prior to the opening of the swim school in 2000, the AVAC planned to build a family locker room for the swim school, but the San Jose planning department denied their request, says Sue Davis, AVAC's general manager of operations. Davis says the city cited its ethnic diversity as a reason that its citizens would not approve of a family locker room. Some cultures would be uncomfortable with opposite genders changing in the same room, the city said.

“That kind of took us by surprise because we owned a facility across the street that was an educational entertainment center that the city allowed us to put family restrooms in,” Davis says.

The AVAC altered its initial plans and installed boys and girls locker rooms, in which mothers and fathers of children 6 years old and younger could be in the locker rooms to help them change. Davis says parents are also allowed in the 16-and-under locker rooms to help children 6 years old and younger.

The family/special needs locker room at the Southtowns Y has lockers and benches in an open area with private changing stalls, showers and bathroom facilities along the sides of the room. In this type of locker room, the elderly, people rehabilitating from an injury or people with prosthetic arms and legs can be assisted by someone of the opposite sex. The locker room gets enough use that two years into its operation, the Southtowns Y expanded it to include more changing stalls and showers.

The family locker room had set the Southtowns Y apart from the rest of the Ys in the YMCA Buffalo Niagara group, but a new Y in the group also will have five locker rooms, including a family/special needs room. Other Ys in the group are looking to install family locker rooms, too, making them the signature locker rooms in their facilities.

“This is the wave of the future, at least for us here in Buffalo,” Townsend says, “because we've seen it become a very successful model.”

Tiered Locker Room Plan Creates Stir at UMKC

The Swinney Recreation Center at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, and part of that celebration involved a $1.9 million renovation. The renovation included an upgrade to the rec center's locker rooms, but the upgrade ended up being different than originally planned.

UMKC planned to implement a tiered locker room system, something the University of Missouri-Columbia, its sibling school, had implemented. Members would pay extra for private lockers with built-in combination locks, a lounge area with Wi-Fi Internet access, flat-panel TVs and towel service. The monthly cost for lockers at UMKC is $10 per month, but the higher-tiered locker room was projected to cost $14 per month. Access to the locker room would be controlled by a biometric reader.

The purpose of the tiered locker room system was to allow members to upgrade their membership while supporting the university's student scholarship program, says Paris Saunders, UMKC's assistant vice chancellor of auxiliary services.

UMKC researched industry trends and studied other facilities that offer similar types of membership upgrades. Saunders adds that UMKC also collected feedback using member surveys.

However, many students, faculty and patrons who use the Swinney Recreation Center said they were not informed of the proposed changes to the locker rooms. Some people expressed their disenchantment in articles and letters to the editor in the school's newspaper, The University News. One of the complaints was that students and faculty could have equal access to the same higher-tiered locker room, creating a conflict of interest and privacy issues.

“What if you have a student from a rich family and he can afford a private locker, and you have another guy from a poor family who's working 20 hours a week and trying to take 12 hours…that makes a person feel bad,” Henry Lyons, a UMKC alumnus and a member of the rec center, told the newspaper.

About a month after plans were made public, administrators at UMKC changed their plans, instead deciding to simply remodel the locker rooms for both men and women. Each of the remodeled locker rooms has a section designated for faculty/staff lockers and showers.

“After discussing these issues with the chancellor and his direct reports, the decision was made to maintain our current level of membership services while we increase the opportunities for additional feedback into a more comprehensive campus recreation and wellness plan,” Saunders wrote in an e-mail to Club Industry's Fitness Business Pro. “The total costs have not been finalized. However, we are within our original budget for the project.”

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