“A lot of people have been waiting a long time [for the pool],” said German Gonzales, an environmental studies major. “It was advertised [at] the grand opening, so people were excited for that.”
The pool originally closed down in March 2020 due to COVID-19 protocols, according to Barry Jodatian, associate vice president of Capital Planning, Design and Construction.
“Last year, the pool’s mechanical room flooded, which caused damage to equipment,” Jodatian said. “Once work commenced, additional internal damage was discovered within some pump components, which required more extensive work than initially anticipated.”
The pool reopened with a Rec the Night celebration on Aug. 24.
“On Aug. 25, the campus experienced an underground water leak coming from a domestic water pipe on Font Boulevard,” Jodatian said.
The broken pipe and subsequent MWC closure were unrelated to the pool closure, according to Jodatian.
“I was planning to go climbing (at MWC) prior to class, but obviously that wasn’t possible,” said Nicolo Tocchini, a master’s student in industrial organizational psychology. “I haven’t been able to substitute anything else simply because the wall is a pretty important part of my routine.”
(Michaela Mateo)
“[The closure] was really annoying,” Gonzales said. “I missed all my group fitness classes that week.”
There is frustration that the water shut-off is affecting the availability of the entire facility, according to Tocchini.
“My biggest concern is that it’s been closed for more than one day, and during the week no less,” Tocchini said.
“Considering that we as students are paying a portion of our tuition to keeping it maintained.”
During temporary closures like MWC had, there is no plan to reimburse students for their Recreation and Wellness Center Fee, according to Bobby King, director of communications for the Office of the President.
“When there is a temporary interruption of service, the university still needs to maintain other MWC operations,” King said. “This fee helps us support MWC’s entire staffing costs, programming and operations.”
Campus Recreation announced on their Instagram that MWC would be open again on Tuesday, Aug, 29. However, a sign on the door said toilets and the pool were unavailable.
The repairs are still ongoing, according to Jodatian.
“We delayed some planned maintenance to the pool that could not be done in concert with the repairs and the needed materials were not available,” Jodatian said. “We expect to carry out this work over the [winter] break.”
King points out that the Recreation and Wellness Center Fee is lower than it was before the pandemic.
“The fee was lowered from $169 to $144 for the 2020-21 academic year. This was…reasonable since [MWC] was spending less on operations and programming,” King said.
Mashouf Wellness Center did not provide comment at the time of publication.
