Renovations to Northwest College’s Johnson Fitness Center are being accelerated.

During its meeting earlier this month, the NWC Board of Trustees approved $240,000 worth of major maintenance funding for the project — allowing work on the third and final phase of the center’s renovation to begin once Phase II concludes this summer.

“The project is part of our facilities master plan, and it was time to ramp that up,” said NWC President Stefani Hicswa, noting that the State of Wyoming approved the funding for the renovation.

Phase I was completed last summer and focused on HVAC replacements and upgrades, insulation replacement and electrical improvements. Phase II is focusing on fire suppression system installation, asbestos abatement and other HVAC replacements and upgrades.

Phase III, according to a project memo, will address further mechanical and structural improvements relating to building abatement and flooring, office space, ceiling improvements and partitioned showers.

“Now, from spring break to the beginning of fall semester, we’re working on Phase II and Phase III, Hicswa said. “Phase III was set to be later in the year, but the state recommended doing it all at once.”

As she crunched the numbers and looked at the project’s timeline, NWC Vice President of Administrative Services and Finances Lisa Watson seconded the state’s recommendation.

“Lisa Watson started looking at it and thought, ‘Well, since we have everybody out of there, let’s go ahead and get it done,’” Hicswa said. “That also saves money from an inflationary standpoint, because if we wait, it will be more expensive in a couple of years.”

Hicswa noted that college has identified renovations to the Visual and Performing Arts building and a new student center as priorities.

“But in the meantime, we’ve got to start addressing some of the other deferred maintenance issues on campus; the Johnson Fitness Center is one of those,” Hicswa said. “If we put it off any longer, we’re going to have some really big problems to deal with.”

Safety and maintenance concerns — plus the fitness center’s importance to not just the campus but also the community — pushed it to the top of the list.

“It’s important that we are very strategic and proactive in looking at our facilities’ needs for 20 years out; we fix up before it fails,” Hicswa said. “This is one of those projects that has several large mechanical and safety issues that were identified for replacement. We worked with the state and identified the priority order for what we needed to do.”

The Johnson Fitness Center renovation project was identified as a priority item in 2014, according to Hicswa. Due to the age of the building and the level of deferred maintenance, the project was presented to the State Construction Department for major maintenance funding. The building had several large mechanical and safety projects identified as being in need of replacement or improvement. Working with the state, each project was identified and scheduled accordingly.

That the Johnson Fitness Center is also considered a classroom didn’t hurt.

“That’s part of the reason the state prioritized it so high — it is academic-based,” Hicswa said of the center. “We need to have that academic base to offer the classes that students need and the community members want. It is an important facet of the campus.”

With work currently underway, Hicswa said she anticipates the Johnson Fitness Center renovations to be done and ready to go as students begin to trickle back to campus in late August; currently, the fitness center is being temporarily housed in the Fagerberg Building Annex.

With the $240,000, “we can do the flooring in the hallway, upgrade the bathrooms in the locker rooms people use in the fitness center,” Hicswa said. “It’s a nice upgrade for the campus and a nice service to the community.”

Editor's note: This version corrects that the center is temporarily housed in the Fagerberg Building Annex.