University of Memphis President M. David Rudd took heat on Twitter Sunday after he announced construction for the new recreation center would be delayed 18 months.
“The university promised students a NEW rec center if we voted for the rec,” Charles Uffelman, former student senator and U of M alumnus, tweeted to Rudd. “To not get a NEW facility would mean admin lied.”
Rudd sent a campus-wide email Sunday discussing planned projects at the U of M including the recreation center, land bridge, parking garage, basketball facility and music center. The email said construction of the bridge and parking garage will begin as soon as possible, but the plans for the rec center have been returned for redesign.
“I recognize and understand the frustrations, but we are being attentive to your overall cost here and being thoughtful as we do it,” Rudd said. “And it will be done – there’s absolutely no question it’s going to be done. It’s just going to be 18 months later than we had hoped for.”
Rudd credited a “convergent of things” for causing the delay. The university received a late notice request from the Tennessee Board of Regents to determine if they were going to release a contract with the recreation center. Administration then recognized the financial model did not generate the revenue needed in order to build the recreation center and land bridge simultaneously.
The U of M could not support the financial model plus the operational cost of the facility. The cost of the rec center, originally priced around $50-55 million, increased to $63 million.
During the next 18 months, the university will continue to work with the same companies to redesign the new facility to work with its financial budget.
Because of this delay, many students questioned if the rec center would ever be built. Rudd, however, said this is not true.
“The fee that we have established and are collecting obligates us to build the rec center and the land bridge, which we’re going to do,” Rudd said. “We are absolutely building a rec center.”
The university plans to repurpose parts of the current rec center after the new rec center is complete. However, the university owes money on the current rec until 2030. There are no plans to demolish the current rec center, but the university will make improvements to the air conditioning and other areas so the rec can stand for another decade.
“We are doing everything we can to hold tuition and fees down,” Rudd said. “Had we not made this decision, we would have some tuition increases that were unexpected and unanticipated.”
In the email sent to the campus community, Rudd included that the U of M has had no tuition increase three years ago. Tuition increases were under 3 percent each year the past two years. In contrast, the average tuition increase was 8 percent annually the previous 15 years.
The new plan caused former student government members to condemn Rudd’s decision to steer away from the original plan.
“We raised fees to roughly $150 to start accumulating funds early for a new land bridge and a new rec center by 2018,” said Charles Uffelman, former Speaker of the Senate. “There was never any talk of keeping the existing rec center and remodeling, and I would not have voted for this if that was the plan.”
Ricky Kirby, former student government president, thinks the administration should hand over the project to student government to avoid any other forms of miscommunication.
“They should first take a step back and admit that they messed up by not consulting students,” Kirby said. “SGA should handle the financial issues, so they can decide on what modifications need to be made to the project.”
Rudd will meet with student government on Thursday to discuss any questions or concerns they have about this new plan. Kirby hopes this meeting gives student government members the chance to openly express their opinions and demand change.
“I hope that SGA members demand that the Office of the President sees through the project that students agreed to pay for, which was a new building with the old one being torn down for intramural and outdoor rec space, not a renovated building with an add-on,” Kirby said
While the land bridge and the parking garage will move forward in construction with plans to break ground this year, the recreation center will continue to be planned for this fall.
A student lifts weights at the current U of M recreation center. President M. David Rudd announced there would be an 18 month delay on construction of a new rec center, which was supposed to start this semester.
