Canberra International Sports and Aquatic Centre
The recreation centre in the Union Court redevelopment will offer a competitive lifetime membership rate to ANU students and alumni.
The Group Operations Manager at The Club Group, Sean Hodges, has confirmed that the group’s proposal for tender ‘allowed for a lifetime rate for all current and past ANU students.’
Hodges, however, could not confirm what the rate would be, but insisted that students and alumni would be satisfied with the figure.
‘The rate will certainly be competitive with that of ANU Sport,’ he said.
The rate will be a figure between $399 and $1170 – the current yearly membership rates at Club Lime for high school students and adults respectively.
Hodges is confident that the ANU Sport facilities and the new recreation centre operated by Club Lime will work well together.
‘A lot of people look at a gym, and think they are all the same – but gyms are different.
‘We will be targeting a different kind of market than is typically using ANU Sport. We will offer a novice and entry-level gymnasium for people who haven’t been to the gym before.’
Hodges contends that the recreation centre will be welcoming for those who might be put off by the experienced gym-goers that regularly use the ANU Sport facilities.
The recreation centre will also aim to cater for the broader Canberra community.
‘We’re hoping to bring in broader community members and corporates from the city area during lunch time,’ Hodges said.
The commercial demographic is crucial to the success of the recreation centre as students will use the facilities less in the summer holidays.
Club Lime’s CISAC location – which is located 400 metres from the University of Canberra’s Student Village and has similar facilities to those that will be in the ANU recreation centre – attracts more than one million visits a year.
Hodges anticipates the recreation centre will employ around 80 staff members within the first one to 18 months, and indicated that many of these will be ANU students.
‘That is the plan … We will be working with the ANU community to provide training and get students skills and qualifications.
‘We will work with students, develop them, develop them for employment,’ Hodges told Woroni.
ANU Sport have demonstrated a similar commitment to employing ANU students over the past year.
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