North Idaho College Student Wellness & Recreation Center

Coeur d'Alene, ID
Construction Cost: $6,670,000
Area / Square Feet: 30,225
Occupancy Date: September 2017

For nearly 15 years, the students of North Idaho College actively pursued the construction of a new facility to promote wellness, fitness and recreation. In the spring of 2015, after several years of planning, the NIC Board of Trustees voted to approve the students’ plan for a new Student Wellness and Recreation Center. NIC students agreed to pay increased fees in order to finance the building, an extremely rare occurrence for two-year institutions.

The facility houses indoor and outdoor student lounges with fireplaces, a climbing/bouldering wall, equipment check-out, a fitness center, a free weight area, a group cycling studio, a multipurpose room, a gymnasium, an elevated running track, a large stretching/cardio mezzanine, group exercise rooms, a teaching lab, locker rooms, staff administration offices and other support spaces.

The project was designed to land gently on a highly visible edge of the campus and support a newly developed campus greenway that will connect the Coeur d’Alene River to Lake Coeur d’Alene through the heart of campus. Views into and out of the building were carefully orchestrated to allow the building to be a beacon of community gathering, wellness and recreation.