Student athletes at Fort Lewis College can now level-up their game with the debut of a new 12,000 square-foot Sports Performance Center. You're watching Durango Local News, brought to you by: Tafoya Barrett & Associates and Crystal Mart. I'm Ryan Simonovich. The project took two years and cost $6 million, with major funding providing by CommonSpirit Health.

We just had the grand opening, and so yeah, this semester, the spring semester, opened it up and student athletes, it's been awesome to see their reactions and the impact it's already making on our recruiting and retention efforts and really trying to be a premier program of excellence within the athletic program. So yeah, just getting started.

10,000 square feet is dedicated to athletic training, and a multi-use mezzanine adds an additional 2,000 square feet for academic support, team meetings, film review, and more. Athletes have access to 24 weight racks and 10 weight machines, in addition to treadmills, rowers, bikes, and stair steppers. The floorplan includes a turf area, and a key feature is a flexible layout to accommodate multiple teams at once. The building formerly housed the campus swimming pool.

We can get a group of almost 100 in here. In the old space, we were using, you know, a lot of time to go through different groups throughout the day. So one large team or four smaller teams can all be working out simultaneously, which is huge for our staff, our strength and conditioning staff, our athletic trainers that are working. And the space also contains rehab amenities as well. So those who may suffer an injury can get back to the court or field healthy and as quickly as possible.

Whipple calls the new space a game changer for a Division II school.

Yeah, over the last couple years as we've been planning this facility, we did a lot of look into and comparison across the country. And I truly believe it's one of one. I think it stands alone at our level, at the Division II level, for NCAA across the country. And you know, going back to that idea of it just ties in the total student athlete experience. It's an all-in-one place for wellness, support services, performance, nutrition, cardio rehab, all of those elements, and then tying in the academic support services really sets it apart.

To learn more about this and other local news stories, visit durangolocal.news. Thanks for watching this edition of the Local News Network. I'm Ryan Simonovich.