The University of Connecticut Facilities Operations and Student Recreation Center worked on a new outdoor activity space adjacent to North Campus this summer.
The $500,000 project, which was a collaboration between Facilities Operations, the Rec Center and Campus Housing, included revitalizing the recreational space behind North which previously included a basketball court, a baseball field, tennis courts and abandoned hand ball courts.
The new space replaced the basketball courts with a multi-purpose space and moved the new basketball court where the abandoned handball courts used to be. The project also replaced the softball field located next to the basketball courts with a one-sixth-mile track. All are now open for student use and can be used at any time. The new name for the space is North Rec Park.
The current tennis courts will be replaced this fall with pickleball courts, according to the Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs, Cynthia Costanzo. Construction is awaiting approval but is expected to begin soon.
“Pickleball courts are really big right now and we think students will really love using them. We already have other tennis courts for students to use on campus so we thought we should add something new,” Costanzo said.
The space hadn’t seen any renovations or updates in 15 years, and the basketball and tennis courts had many cracks. According to Nathan Bedard, a facilities manager for UConn, if the courts were left unrenovated they would have reached a state of unusability.
During the renovations, overgrown brush was cleared, and a new drainage system was added to ensure there’s no flooding. OOzeball, UConn’s annual mud volleyball tournament, is held in the field by the courts; the new system will keep the land manageable during the event, according to Bedard.
“All the water runs off from Charter Oak down that hill. So, the utilities team improved the drainage up there so that the park area won’t get soggy,” Bedard said.
The new multipurpose area has many uses, according to Costanzo, so the Rec Center hopes to hold outdoor exercise classes there.
Recreation, Residential Life and the Fine Arts department are also collaborating on a mural project for the space as well. The 24 by 16 feet walls that had been used for the hand ball courts will be used for the mural. According to Bedard, Residential Life “set up a program where students can submit drawings, and then they’ll do a process and award somebody the ability to paint their mural on one of the walls.”
The project is meant to improve the experience of the thousands of students that live in the north part of campus, according to Bedard. Costanzo stated that UConn is moving toward making North and Northwest dorms exclusively first-year student housing.
“This space will be nice for students in those communities,” Costanzo said.