A new recreation facility is coming to George Mason University. The university and Hoar Construction broke ground on a 25,000-square-foot Activities Community Wellness Building at the university’s Fairfax campus.
This new facility will be the home base for The Green Machine pep band and provide space for student programming. This $11 million project is expected to be complete by spring 2025.
“If anything personifies our students, our diversity, our rich heritage, our innovation, our spirit, it actually is the Green Machine,” University President Gregory Washington said. “So having that entity have a focal point, a centerpiece, a gathering point, a rallying point, is probably one of the most important things we can do.”
The Activities Community Wellness Center will have a full-sized basketball court for intramural basketball games. It will also have additional athletic courts, yoga and exercise classrooms, storage, conference rooms, and office space.
“This is truly a students-come-first building,” said Rose Pascarell, vice president for University Life. “It’s really about listening to the needs of students who have consistently said to us: ‘We want more space to gather. We want to be able to come together more easily. We want to engage with each other.’”
Hoar Construction will oversee the facility’s construction, alongside Powers Brown Architecture and civil engineer IMEG Corp.
The facility will have a concrete tilt-up building in the middle, flanked by two large tents over the courts. This design will “give George Mason the flexibility to remove the tents later and build a more permanent facility, while saving the school money and shortening the overall construction timeline,” according to a news release from Hoar.
It will be the first building to use the school’s new logo that George Mason unveiled in April.
The new facility will be located behind the existing Recreation Athletic Complex on campus.
Feature rendering courtesy Powers Brown Architecture
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