BRCC student recreation center in the works

Blue Ridge Community College has led Virginia community colleges in a number of areas, and has a new venture that would make it first among those schools again.

Blue Ridge expects to build a 40,000-square-foot recreation center on the Weyers Cave campus by 2012, officials said Friday.

The community college will use an increase in per-credit hour student fees to fund the project.

When complete, Blue Ridge would be the first Virginia community college with such a facility, school President James Perkins said.

Perkins told a Waynesboro audience of community leaders and Blue Ridge supporters Friday morning of the recreation center plans.

He said the next major hurdle is approval by the Virginia General Assembly for a non-general fund appropriation. The approval is needed despite the fact that no state money will be used for the project.

Perkins said the $10-million project should be complete by fall 2012, and will be funded by a structured fee increase for students.

Students will be assessed an additional $4 per credit hour each year until the increase reaches $16 per credit hour.

“This is not cheap, but there is no money from the commonwealth,” Perkins said of the creative funding for the project.

The facility will include a gym, racquetball court area, running tracks, basketball courts, a fitness area and weight room. There are no plans for a pool.

“It will be their recreational fitness area,” Perkins said. Students now participate in fitness activities at area YMCAs and Augusta Medical Center.

Perkins said that while Blue Ridge’s full-time enrollment continues to increase, its students have gotten younger during the past decade.

He said the average age of Blue Ridge students has decreased from 29 to around 23.

More young students are taking advantage of the community college’s guaranteed transfer program, which gives students the option of transferring to universities such as James Madison and Old Dominion after attaining a certain grade-point average over two years at Blue Ridge.

“JMU’s the biggest driver of this,” Perkins said.