Campus Recreation Center East (CRCE) opened March 30, providing students with an alternative to IMPE, which has become cramped and dirty in the eyes of many students.

Many students also approve of the new gym, on the corner of Gregory and Dorner drives, despite what they describe as small shortcomings.

“It’s better than IMPE right now,” Matt Marzillo, sophomore in Applied Life Studies, said. “IMPE seems like a makeshift gym with all the construction.”

Several gyms and the swimming pool in IMPE will be closed after this semester for renovation.

Marzillo has worked out at CRCE six times since it opened two weeks ago, and he said that he is going to CRCE more times a week than he went to IMPE.

For many students, it was not the size of IMPE that bothered them – it was the location. Until CRCE opened, students who lived in Urbana had no place to work out close to their homes.

Jesse Kuiper, graduate student, said that CRCE is much more convenient for him because it is close to his office. Now he is able to come in and work out at CRCE before or after work. Kuiper used to come to CRCE before it underwent renovations in 2002 and one of his main complaints was that it did not open sooner.

“It was closed for four months longer than it was supposed to be,” Kuiper said.

CRCE’s leisure pool, which boasts a waterslide at one end, a spa at another, a makeshift water volcano at another and a volleyball net in the middle, has been a big draw, some of the lifeguards said. The waterslide opens at night and people have been flocking to CRCE to use it, the lifeguards said.

“You bring two friends here and you can have a great time,” said Seamus Scannell, a lifeguard at the pool.

CRCE itself has a very open-air design; the running track upstairs goes all the way around the weight area and the cardio equipment and the pool and basketball courts on the first floor are visible from it as well. Many students liked that, but some said that it was over the top.

The main complaint about CRCE is the lack of space for free weights, which are sandwiched between the stairs and the cardio machines. Also, some students were annoyed that there is only one bench press in the building.

“I think they went overboard trying to make it look modern,” Steve Koo, senior in engineering, said, as he looked over at the bench press. “This is the first time the bench press has been open.”

Koo’s complaint was shared by many of the students who work out there. But even Koo said that he still prefers CRCE to IMPE because of its location and atmosphere.

The smaller free weight area made room for more cardio machines, which was a huge advantage to sophomores Miranda Pollak and Elissa Johnson, who each said that they had been to CRCE close to a dozen times since it opened.

“The locker rooms seem real organized,” Johnson said. “It’s like a real health club.”

“It’s more girl-friendly with all the cardio machines,” Pollak said. “I like it a lot better than IMPE.”

CRCE also added three regulation-size basketball courts. Students had complained that while CRCE was closed, it was very difficult to find an open court at IMPE.

IMPE renovations have been delayed as the Board of Trustees had to rebid the construction contract last fall. The next phase of IMPE’s renovations will begin this summer and will take two years to complete. Until that time, all parts of IMPE, with the exception of Gym 1, will be closed.