Eastern Illinois University’s Recreation Center will begin renovations to the wooden courts and its three studios, which have been damaged by water intrusion, beginning on Monday. 

The wooden floors will be closed to students for the rest of the semester while the floors are being replaced. 

The courts are expected to be reopened in time for the first day of the fall semester, according to Director of Campus Recreation Sarah Daugherty.  

“We’ve got some places where [the floor] is warped; we’ve got some places where it’s actually disintegrated underneath us,” Daugherty said. “It’s time [to replace it].” 

The project, which was approved by the EIU Board of Trustees on Jan. 24, will cost $978,100 and is completely funded by the university.  

“[The funding] is partially coming from savings from the water mitigation project that we just finished, and then partially from bond revenue because we are a bond entity,” Daugherty said.  

The courts, which are painted to support basketball, volleyball and badminton will have new maple floors. 

Daugherty said instead of badminton lines, there will be pickleball lines painted on the court which are the same size, but pickleball courts have a few more lines compared to badminton courts. 

According to Daugherty, three of the six basketball courts are unusable because of the damage. There is carpet covering up the water damage on the east side of the courts, and a half of one court is closed off completely because the wood underneath the basketball rim is raised and cracked.  

“I hope [students] are going to love it as much as we will,” Daugherty said. “Their functionality just isn’t awesome right now.” 

The timing of the closure has intramural sports in mind, according to Daugherty, who said that sports like basketball and volleyball are wrapping up their seasons next week.  

Work on the courts will begin after those championship games.  

Other sports, such as spike ball and kickball can be played in the field house and outside after spring break, she said.  

Group fitness classes, which meet in the studio, will be relocated, according to Daugherty.  

“We purposely waited until mid-March when we got to spring break because most of our intramurals are done,” Daugherty said.  

In addition, a small portion of the weight room will be closed while the wood underneath the floor gets replaced. The north side of the downstairs weight room, which has squat racks lined against the wall, will be closed off for the rest of the semester. 

Daugherty said replacing the wood that sits underneath the padding in that area of the weight room is one of the first things crews will do.  

Losing the courts in the Recreation Center is a blow to the Sunday plans of Lucas Herbert, a sophomore exercise science major.  

Herbert plays basketball on Sundays and will occasionally go during the week with a friend or by himself to play basketball. 

“I enjoy playing basketball at the Rec,” Herbert said. “I usually go and play with the guys from the Christian Campus House after church, and it’s always a fun time.”

Gabe Newman can be reached at 581-2812 or at ghnewman@eiu.edu.