New fitness center scheduled to open early next year

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Dillon White
  • 341st Missile Wing Public Affairs Office
MALMSTROM AIR FORCE BASE, Mont., --  The new base fitness center is nearing Phase I completion and is currently scheduled to be opened in March 2009. 

Construction began on the facility in April 2007. Talcott Construction Company and L'Heureux, Page and Werner Architects made changes to the original design which provided an additional 6,500 square feet of usable floor space. 

The additional space will be used as a group exercise room until Phase II construction begins, transforming the exercise room into a lap pool, said Bill McLaughlin, 341st Civil Engineer Squadron engineering flight chief. 

"The facility proposed in the request for proposal was L-shaped and did not include space for the lap pool in Phase I," Mr. McLaughlin said. "This was a win/win situation for both the government, and the design and build team." 

When Phase I is complete, Airmen will find three regulation size basketball courts, a suspended 1/8 mile running track, a wrestling room, a massage area, a cardio theater with $100,000 in additional cardiovascular equipment, a climbing machine and eight 47-inch flat screen televisions. 

The interior of the fitness center now has a mezzanine, or a second floor that shares the first floor's ceiling. The 1/8 mile track is built in the same fashion and resembles a balcony suspended on the inside walls of the fitness center, overlooking the first floor.
Racquetball courts, spinning classrooms and the main office will remain open in the "old" fitness center until the addition is built onto the new building during Phase II. All other activities will move to the new fitness center. 

Current design drawings of Phase II provide room for four racquetball courts, the front desk area, several offices and a collocated Health and Wellness Center inside the new building. 

The fitness center staff plans to turn part of the old fitness center into a play area for children following the completion of Phase I. 

"We have seen a serious problem with parents not having the time to work out due to daycare problems," said Tech. Sgt. Scott Devore, NCO in charge of the fitness center. 
"We will turn part of the old free-weight room into a kid's play area so parents may come in and workout while watching their kids." 

The fitness center staff is ecstatic about the new building and looking forward to the move, Sergeant Devore said. 

"We walked over to the new facility to get our fitness center staff acclimated to the idea of working there. They were in utter awe of the size of it and they're excited to be part of something so large," he said.