At the Evanston Athletic Club, members can watch a personal television while exercising, choose from more than 150 classes every week and even climb rocks.
Those benefits might lure some Northwestern students and faculty to pay more than $50 a month to work out at EAC, 1723 Benson Ave., instead of exercising at facilities on campus that are free to students and offered at a discount to faculty.
Heidi Chalem, the director of business operations at EAC, said 300 people signed up this year for student memberships. She estimated 75 percent of those people were from NU.
Features like rock climbing are not the only reasons students join EAC. Many students say the downtown club is a more convenient choice for them.
Matt Murray, a second-year Kellogg School of Management student, said he joined EAC more than a year ago because he was tired of waiting for machines at the Sports Pavilion and Aquatics Center, the biggest athletic facility on campus. Murray said he has never waited for a machine at the EAC.
“Literally it seemed like (SPAC) had one set of free weights and that I was constantly waiting,” he said.
However, some patrons said they are satisfied with the equipment available at SPAC.
McCormick senior Sabrina Duncan, said she joined EAC when she lived in the Sorority Quads because it was closer. She later canceled her club membership after she moved out of the quads and decided it wasn’t worth the money.
“I was just being lazy not walking over (to SPAC) because the facility’s complete,” she said.
Some SPAC users said the center’s atmosphere is another reason many students and faculty remain on campus.
Dianne Burgin, a psychology and behavioral science professor at NU’s Feinberg Medical School, has been working out at SPAC for 25 years. She said she likes SPAC because it has a diverse group of people.
“I run into colleagues and students sometimes and I think it’s wonderful,” she said.
Unlike some gyms SPAC is more casual, she said. People don’t need to “wear make-up and fancy clothes” to work out. Burgin, a psychologist, said she actually recommends SPAC to several of her older clients who may feel uncomfortable at other gyms where they may feel embarrassed or out of place.
But some students and faculty members said they prefer the workout environment at EAC.
Niki Kantor, a Weinberg senior, joined EAC as a freshman and said she likes to exercise off campus.
“SPAC was always more of a social see-and-be-seen thing and I didn’t want to do that while I was working out,” Kantor said.
Jackie Grober, a psychology and behavioral science professor at Feinberg, said she thinks there are fewer “buff bodies” at SPAC and therefore likes people-watching at EAC much more.
“When I go to Northwestern I get a little bored when I’m working out,” she said. ‘There’s nobody for me to look at.”
According to Dan Bulfin, director of recreational sports at NU, funding for NU’s athletic facilities comes in part from students’ tuitions. The university’s athletic facilities are nonprofit.
The number of students using NU’s athletic facilities increases every year, Bulfin said. He said SPAC has 1,200 to 1,400 visitors daily, and Blomquist Recreation Center and Patten Gym have about 400 to 700 people visit each day.
“I think (SPAC has) something … for everyone,” Bulfin said. “Some folks are looking for a different experience, just like some people take a bus and others drive a sports car. They both get you to where you’re going, though.”
