If you stop by the $10 million wellness center at South Dakota State University (SDSU), Brookings, SD, in the late afternoon, you'll see students working out, playing intramural sports and even refilling prescriptions at the center's health clinic and pharmacy. But perhaps a more surprising sight is the community members you'll see working out alongside students.

In a normal month, the center has 20,000 student visits and 8,000 community member visits, according to Ruth Schroeder, wellness center director at SDSU. To help offset operational costs and improve the health and well-being of the community, the SDSU Wellness Center offers a range of community membership options.

SDSU isn't the only university that offers community memberships — it has become a trend, says Jimmy O'Connor, accreditation manager, National Recreation and Park Association.

“With university rec centers, it's quite common, if not universal, that most university rec centers have a public membership option to diversify their revenue base,” O'Connor says.

Community memberships do help increase operational revenue, Schroeder says.

“I would say the primary purpose of the community memberships is operations [revenue] to pay for the staff and custodial employees,” she says. That revenue helps support facility operations, including salaries for the 100 to 150 student employees and custodial staff, plus maintenance, equipment upgrades and resurfacing floors.

Because community members often are older and more financially secure than students, offering community memberships also can increase ancillary revenue at a university rec center, says Melissa Elfering, fitness center director, Eastern Washington University (EWU), Cheney, WA.

The community members at EWU are more likely to pay for personal training than students because they're more comfortable with it and they often have done it before, Elfering says. Students, on the other hand, may not have the money for personal training or aren't sure they want to spend what money they do have on it.

Not only do universities use revenue from community memberships for funding, but a growing number also are partnering with local governmental entities to build multi-use rec centers.

“Higher education experience with fitness and recreation has produced a lot of impressive facilities with huge operating deficits,” says Hervey R. Lavoie, architect and president of Ohlson Lavoie Collaborative, Denver. “These institutions are looking for ways to have their cake and eat it, too … that is to build huge, impressive facilities but have them be financially sustainable over the long term.”

This trend is especially prevalent in smaller communities where the university and city have closer relationships, says Brian Beckler, senior principal, Ohlson Lavoie. Even though all facilities on a university campus are subsidized by states or cities, rec centers can be designed to help offset operational costs as much as possible, he says.

“It's true that more often than not they lose money, but it's a service like a library — it's something they have to have on campus,” Beckler says.

Construction for the SDSU Wellness Center was paid for by student fees, community donations and a $500,000 donation from the city of Brookings, Schroeder says. The funding helped SDSU build a climbing and bouldering wall, an indoor walk/run track, a 25-yard indoor pool, three basketball courts and three group exercise rooms.

But this collaboration can cause commercial club operators to claim that the funding and community memberships are a conflict of interest.

“Personally, I've never heard of other universities doing it [offering community memberships],” says Gregg Stern, co-owner of Powershop Gym Inc., a company with three clubs in Brookings. “Most of the university centers I've heard of are for students. To me, it's kind of a conflict of interest, especially since they're tax-exempt and state-funded.”

Local residents are impressed by the magnitude of SDSU's new, multimillion dollar facility, Stern says.

“The university is probably our biggest competition in town,” he says. “We've lost a couple of clubs in this town since they opened the new wellness center.”

Brookings, which has six fitness facilities including the SDSU center, supports a student population of about 11,000 and a local community of about 20,000 people. In a town that size, loyalty to the college is part of the reason the SDSU center is so popular.

“People feel like they should support it, whether they're alumni, or sports fans or they have students up there,” Stern says.

LEVERAGING ALLIANCES

The Freedom Aquatic and Fitness Center, Manassas, VA, was built through a collaboration between George Mason University, the city of Manassas and Prince William County, VA. All three parties entered an agreement to split the cost and debt service for the$17 million facility over 20 years.

Although the university owns and operates the facility, the fee split was based on projected use, then adjusted later for actual use, says Leslie Shinners, general manager for the center. In the 1990s, the city, county and university all were looking to build a rec center, so administrators at the three entities decided to work together on a revenue-neutral facility, she says.

“None of the three organizations were in any position to be able to build what they wanted to build and serve the community needs alone,” Shinners says. “If it hadn't been a partnership, it wouldn't have happened. At least there was no promise of it when it was built in the late 1990s. The city and county are happy with it. Their contribution is much lower than if they'd built their own facility.”

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