The Physical Activities Center’s indoor pool will be removed by the end of this semester, and a climbing gym will take its place by the beginning of summer 2026 in the second phase of renovations to the PAC.

Campus Recreation and Wellness staff cited pool cost and student demand for the climbing wall as motivating factors, but students in key recreational clubs were not consulted about the change before it was official.

When the gym is finished, the new studio will include bouldering, top-rope, lead and auto-belay climbing on walls between 18 and 28 feet tall. With more open floorspace, there will also be equipment for CrossFit, HIIT and bootcamp-style workouts.

According to Ian Brown, the director of campus recreation, the Board of Trustees approved a $5.3 million budget for this phase of renovation. The funds are coming from private donors, Furman capital funds and bond funds left over from resident hall construction that must be used this fiscal year.

Other changes in this phase of renovations include splitting the current men’s locker room into two — a men’s and women’s — and turning the former women’s locker room into a modern Health Sciences lab. The therapy pool area will be the new home of the group fitness studio, and two classrooms will be added in its place.

Brown says that the health sciences department was in need of new classrooms, and only 5% of PAC sessions are pool uses (5,000 out of 92,000 gym sessions annually). He also said the pools are getting too expensive, costing Furman $200,000 for five more years of life.

“The aging pools have been retrofitted numerous times over the past four decades and are a significant financial and maintenance burden. This has challenged us to think about the future of the PAC carefully and creatively and reenvision a new life for this space,” the Office of Student Life stated in an email to students on Sept. 12.

The climbing gym was deemed a favorable option because it offers a full-body exercise that also engages your brain through problem-solving. “Climbing sessions are short, social and scalable, so beginners and advanced climbers can train side‑by‑side,” Brown said.

Additionally, Brown cited “student demand” as a reason for the renovation. Brown pointed to high outdoor recreation participation amongst students and strong alignment between rock climbing and campus recreation’s wellbeing strategy, which includes the eight dimensions of wellness, according to Furman’s health and wellbeing website.

However, The Paladin could not find any evidence that they solicited feedback from students or student organizations directly.
Furman University Outdoors Club President Hope Cook ‘26 met with campus recreation staff once in May, before the news of the renovation was public.

“(It) was to let me know about the plan for the PAC to be renovated so that I could be aware of how that might affect the club that I am in leadership for, that is my impression,” Cook said. “The meeting wasn’t intended to garner feedback from FUOC, just to inform and for me to ask questions.”

She anticipates that her club will use the new gym to some degree.

“I think all of our events that we currently host at other gyms will continue to be at other gyms, but this new climbing wall offers a more accessible resource to us to train and prepare for these events and introduce more people to climbing,” Cook said.

Many students are disappointed they will no longer have access to a pool on campus. Hannah Butlak ‘26 is the Triathlon Club secretary, a PAC group fitness instructor and a member of the Climbing Club.

“Club Swim, Club Triathlon, those are different organizations that the pool’s benefitting. It’s bringing in community members that also use it to swim laps,” Butlak said. “The faculty use it to swim laps. Different sports teams use it as cross training or for recovery. Our #1-ranked cross country men’s and women’s team use it, probably the most out of any student, and that’s being taken away from them.”

Anticipating that this change would have a negative effect on their club, members of the Triathlon Club started a petition to keep the pool. Tate Denham ‘26, the club’s former president, current treasurer and a member of Furman’s Swim Club, was one of these advocates.

The petitioners were initially met with resistance from the campus recreation staff. Jordan Cox, Assistant Director of Competitive Sports, approached Denham and Triathlon Club President Nick Abell ‘27 at Rec Fest to discourage their petition because they wanted all of campus recreation to maintain a “united front,” as phrased by Cox.

Later, Brown and Cox met with Denham and Abell to emphasize that instructing a group not to petition is counter to their values as a department. However, Denham noted that an apology for this incident did not come right away. 

“Ian spent most of the meeting walking us through the details and justifying the decision, while briefly addressing our questions and concerns,” Dehnam said. “I do not remember Ian attempting to apologize to us during this meeting. If he did, it didn’t come across in a meaningful way.”

Denham said that Brown did apologize later, at a meeting on Sept. 18 with members of the Swim Club and Triathlon Club. 

It was in this meeting that Brown informed Denham that he thought the Triathlon Club was inactive. In actuality, it is reaching record-high numbers of participation.

“For context, we had a full budget last semester, our biggest race turnout ever and we placed in all top three spots in the men’s 20–24 age group in two races last year,” Denham said. “To hear him say that made it clear he doesn’t actually understand the scope of our club.”

Denham worries that prospective students interested in swimming and triathlons will be less likely to attend Furman following the pivot to a climbing gym. “I don’t see a future for our club if the pools close,” he said.

A representative of campus recreation is scheduled to speak at the SGA meeting on Sept. 29, and a community town hall will take place on Nov. 13.

“I think the most that they can do, if they can change the decision of the pool closing or not, is at least listen, and make most students feel like they’ve been heard, which isn’t something they’ve tried to do,” Butlak said.

Denham says that campus recreation staff members have emphasized to students on several occasions that the decision to close the pool is final. Meanwhile, he and his fellow club members are still petitioning for the pool to exist along with new health science classrooms. 

“We are hopeful that the efforts we make now can put pressure on the administration to consider our concerns. We refuse to accept decisions being made for us without us,” Denham said. 

The campus recreation staff is addressing the imminent lack of access to an on-campus pool through what Brown calls a “support-through-transition” approach, which includes partnering with nearby aquatic centers such as the Kroc Center and the Greenville Aquatic Center with reservation costs covered through this year.

“We understand there will be some frustration with this transition. We hope our pool users continue to use other areas of the PAC,” Brown said.

Estimated renovation timeline: 

• Fall 2025
  • Input sessions, design finalization and a community information session.
  • Sept. 29 — SGA briefing
  • Nov. 13 — Community Town Hall
  • Dec. 10 — Study Day Pool Closing Celebration
• Winter 2025
  • The demolition process begins.
• Spring 2026
  • Group fitness will be offered on a month-to-month schedule as construction continues. 
• Summer 2026
  • Final installations, staff training, soft opening and opening celebration.