Setting Up Your Recreation Center to Handle Fitness Trends

Planning a new recreation center requires a good bit of research and foresight. You need to know the wants and needs of the community you’ll be serving. In all, though, you can count on some standards. You can’t go wrong by incorporating basketball courts that can be used for games, practices, open play, and speaking events. A gym is a safe bet, too, with both free weights, a track, weight machines, and locker rooms. No surprises here.
But when it comes to anticipating future fitness, equipment, and dietary trends, you may run into some problems. With our extensive experience in facility planning, SFA knows just how to set up a new sports facility, recreation center, or community center to deal with fluctuating consumer demands. Below, we share some advice for new facilities.

Keep It In The Budget

Keeping a little extra money in your budget to invest in burgeoning trends is always a smart option. Suspension training, such as the popular TRX system, requires some equipment that you may not have already had lying around. Thankfully, it can be incorporated into your recreation center without taking up too much space, and it makes for good class opportunities, providing you can find an instructor.
It’s important to remember here that you don’t want to get too eager about a new trend by investing heavily and then realizing that it’s on the decline. To this end, maintain a close relationship with your clientele. Listen to their recommendations and get feedback on things they might like to see introduced to the recreation center. Thankfully, not all new trends require a ton of equipment, and accommodating them may only require that you find someone qualified to teach a class of interested participants.

Build Modular Spaces

Another smart move when planning your facility is to build convertible or modular spaces. A basketball gym with retractable seating is a basic example of this. Even marking your gym in a way that it can accommodate various sports such as basketball, volleyball, badminton, and pickleball, is a good idea, and it doesn’t require a lot of extra work. Open studio rooms can be easily used for dance classes, yoga classes, step classes, calisthenics classes, and more. Overall, build you recreation center in a way that makes it adaptable. This will help you accommodate future fitness trends.

Let SFA Help Plan Your Recreation Center

Keeping your facilities adaptable is not as hard as you think. Budgeting and planning appropriately can set you up for success, regardless of what new equipment and fads may rise to popularity. Enlisting the help of SFA to help with your feasibility planning, FF&E planning, and more ensures your project is handled from every angle. To learn more about our services or to speak with one of our professionals, reach us at 727-877-1791.