EDITORIAL: Ensure adequate recreation space

The move to cancel a rooftop fitness center must be matched with real progress on facilities space. Turns out that it was. Now, officials are scaling back their plans, canceling the HRS rooftop exercise room and instead promising to build smaller facilities in each of the high rises over a longer period of time. Though the move is extremely disappointing, it does not have to mean disaster -- as long as the University fulfills its promise to overhaul recreational facilities. In April, Penn released the long-awaited consultants' report on recreational facilities. Not surprisingly to anyone familiar with the current lack of adequate facilities, the report recommended an additional 225,000 square feet of recreational space. The University community praised the administration for immediately announcing plans to renovate Gimbel Gymnasium. That $1.2 million improvement is well on its way to completion, and Gimbel should make up at least in part for the loss of the HRS facility. And Penn's recently-announced decision to decrease membership costs for both Gimbel and Hutch will help compensate for not being able to work out for free in the high rises. Despite the renovations to Gimbel - and especially with the cancellation of the plans for HRS -- the University must not lose sight of its overall obligation to vastly expand recreational facilities in the near future. Though the cost may be high, students have made it clear that a university of Penn's caliber needs to have adequate facilities. The decision to cancel the HRS rooftop facility does not bode well for the greater goal, unless that money is channeled into other projects that will boost recreational space -- and soon.