When it comes to skate parks or inline hockey rinks, sometimes the hardest part is getting the project rolling. With this obstacle in mind, we offer some creative funding and fundraising ideas, based on the real-life monetary experiences of several different skating facilities across the country. Pick up some tips on how to kick-start planning and secure funding.

If you remember when leg warmers and leotards were fashion statements at the health club, then you know how far fitness facilities—and their memberships—have come since then. Get a handle on this ever evolving and competitive industry and get your fitness facility in shape with the best design, programming and staffing ideas.

With many pools of the ’50s and ’60s taking their last laps both physically and functionally, communities are faced with three basic choices: repair, renovate or reinvest in the lap pool’s more highly evolved counterpart, the aquatic center. Many communities, armed with public demand and backed by tax dollars, are choosing new aquatic centers. As a society our expectations for quality of life now include water recreation in a way that is unprecedented, resulting in facility design and programming innovations effecting everything from rec center tot pools to university rec and fitness centers to medical facilities.

Whether renovating the old or starting new, knowing what works in aquatic facility design and programming is critical. Find out what's hot and what's not in the booming industry of aquatics.

From smoking and blaring music to dress codes and foul language, can’t we all just get along?

Be it hardcore smokers making a stink or kids running amok in locker rooms, we look at some common conflicts and offer solutions for finding a middle ground.

If everything really is bigger is Texas, then Houston's Reliant Park is a prime example.

The facility is just plain huge, making Reliant Park one of the largest, most versatile sports, entertainment and convention sites in the United States. With the addition of two brand-new, state-of-the-art facilities—Reliant Stadium and Reliant Center—the campus has created a renewed interest in bringing quality events to the city of Houston. Additionally, Reliant Park has created new jobs, boosted the city's economy and created opportunities for various Houston businesses along the way.

As it turns out, the newest town in Georgia is 130 years old—at least in spirit. Stone Mountain Park in Atlanta has created an 1870s rural southern town as its first new family attraction in more than 25 years.

One major focus of the recreated town is the 12,873-square-foot Great Barn, an indoor, four-story interactive playscape combining high-tech play with old-fashioned fun. In fact, the Great Barn uses 21st-century technology to teach about 19th-century farm life. It’s like a giant, live video game. Visitors wear electronic wristbands to score points at more than 70 stations.

What do you get when you mix golf with history?

The answer is Legends of the Niagara, a deluxe, 45-hole golf complex carved out of land adjacent to a historic battlefield, opened last June. The $27 million (Canadian) facility, owned and operated by the Niagara Parks Commission, was designed as a major destination for golfers and history buffs alike.

In light of the nearly one-half million cases of unexpected cardiac arrest that occur annually in the United States, the effective deployment and use of AEDs can potentially go a long way in saving many lives.

Despite the fact that some recent reports indicate that perhaps as many as 50 percent of those individuals who suffer cardiac arrest could be saved by rapid external defibrillation, many health, fitness and recreational facilities have been slow to adopt an AED program based in part upon a perceived risk of claim and suit if such devices were made available and either used negligently or not used at all. Despite the foregoing, it is probably more likely than not that a failure to provide an AED program at health, fitness and recreation facilities will in the near future be subject to claims of negligence rather than the assertion of claims of negligence related to the improper use of such devices.

One of the most unfortunate aspects of all programs is that sports violence is one of the most accepted types of negative behavior and abuse in our society. There’s been a dramatic shift from enjoyment to intense competition.

Most of us look at this negative behavior at a ball game, and we’re appalled when it turns into violence. But unfortunately, our sports programs and facilities are not immune to what occurs around us everyday. Find out how you can improve your programs.

Batting cages are becoming an essential practice tool used to train baseball and softball hitters from the youth leagues to the majors. Intensive hitting practice can be done safely in a controlled indoor or outdoor space, allowing each player to get many more swings than he or she would get on an open field. What's the right system for your facility?

When there’s a climbing wall in the house, it draws attention. People are mesmerized. Gone are the days of molded plastic holds bolted on to sheets of plywood. These days, technology has out-rocked rock itself.

Climbing walls are showing up in more and more facilities, so how do you make yours stand out? Check out some innovations in both unique programs and wall technology to set yours apart.

Architects and other design experts across the country increasingly are finding site furnishings to play an important role not only in how parks, recreational facilities and other public spaces are perceived, but how they are used.

Landscape architects and interior designers are stretching and changing the use of site furnishings. In doing so, they are putting the aesthetics in athletics.

No matter who you are or how well your organization is run, negative press can find you. The key is to remain focused and professional.

Navigating the sea of public relations is a tricky task. We promote smooth sailing with tips on how to handle negative press and ways to generate positive publicity.

Get the latest dirt on the best practices for grounds maintenance and turf management from pros across the country. Our tips from some of the nation's top programs will put you at the head of the class.

No matter whether you tend a little-league diamond or baby its big-league brother, there’s something that is sure to apply to your situation.

It’s hard to go swimming when you don’t even know there’s a pool around.

Such was the case for many of the 11,000 members of the Mission Valley YMCA in San Diego. For 18 years, the facility’s the six-lane, 45-meter-by-25-meter outdoor pool was hidden away from sight by looming walls. Find out how the Y put its pool in the spotlight.

Find out how one family fun park decided to take the plunge into the skate park business, from researching park layouts and amenities to even the right music. Embracing the skating crowd so far has been a boon for business.

Talk about growing pains. There was no doubt Bridgewater State College in Bridgewater, Mass., needed a new gym. Badly. The physical education (movement arts) and athletics and recreation departments all shared one 45-year-old gymnasium, which was constantly jammed with classes, athletic practices, intramural games, you name it. Scheduling was a logistics nightmare, sometimes with no free time from dawn to late night even for students to shoot a few hoops.

Well, the college did its homework, so take a tour of the new big building on campus.

Although we design, build and operate our facilities with the safety of our guests foremost, accidents and lawsuits are still possible. In this day and age and in this litigious society we live in, lawsuits are always possible and sometimes probable. Is your facility doing all that it can to protect itself?

While fitness facility managers realize the importance of having the proper mix of cardiovascular and strength-training equipment to meet the needs of their exercisers, many don’t realize how imperative the layout and planning of the facility can be to its success. Although liability can never be entirely eliminated in a center, a properly designed facility will help limit it.

When designing the layout of your facility, always keep safety, functionality and comfort top-of-mind. Doing this will limit liability and ultimately give facility patrons better exercise experiences.

There is no doubt that property managers and owners are continually looking for effective ways to properly manage their ponds and lakes. Factors such as allotted budgets, current pond conditions and available work force all must be taken into consideration for any pond maintenance program.

No matter what your mother told you, looks matter—at least in the business of running a recreation facility. If things are allowed to become tattered, faded or coated with a grimy film of dust and mystery-goo, patrons will not have much trouble assuming that the cleanliness of the water is questionable as well.

Whether your facility is brand-spanking new or decades old, you never have worry about eventually showing your age with the help of some tricks-of-the-trade maintenance and management strategies. From the essentials of keeping your water sparkling to the how-to’s of annual shut-downs, find out what it takes to create a better-than-new facility and to keep patrons happily coming back for more.

They come to you with piercings, with tattoos, with cell phones surgically attached. Their family time is important. Their personal time is important. Their job, perhaps, is not. They keep the name of their lawyer on their PDAs. A human resources nightmare? No, just your employees. Explore the challenges and rewards of the latest generation of staff issues, from the Mature crowd to Generation Y.

For snack bars to full-fledged restaurants, we give you the recipe for increasing profits, improving service and cutting costs. From design to operations, pick up a few tips on food service and concessions.

Crowds are often referred to in the third person in ways that suggest they have a collective will: The crowd went wild. The crowd turned ugly. Despite collective behavior, crowds are made up of individuals. And it’s the duty of recreational facility managers to safeguard every individual in their facility.

Especially in light of some recent incidents, we examine the best techniques for keeping mass-spectator events peaceful and fun. Also a look at other security-related issues for large crowds.

When it comes to home court advantage, the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers women’s hockey team has the competition iced. The University of Minnesota’s Ridder Arena is the first—and currently only—arena dedicated solely to women’s hockey in the country.

Completed last year, Ridder Arena was conceived in the mid-1990s when the women’s hockey program began booming in popularity, and the team’s need for ice time became apparent. Likewise, the Gophers tennis teams were without a permanent home, so a space for them was included in the project.

When a rainstorm is capable of dumping more than eight inches of rain in one area in less than 24 hours, it’s considered so rare that it only occurs once every 500 years. In the summer of 2002, Galena, Ill., experienced two such rainstorms in the course of three months.

With currently more than 16 million skateboarders in the United States, skateboarding is the fastest growing sport among youth today. As a result, skate parks have been popping up around the country. Though many facilities, parks and municipalities are interested in building skate parks, it’s hard to know where to start if you are unfamiliar with the sport. For those jumping into the process, here are several key issues to help avoid mistakes that can affect your park’s success.

Sure, Americans are in love with lawn. However, there is a growing trend to convert unused lawn to native plantings such as prairie, savanna and wetland. In addition to providing valuable recreational space in the form of outdoor classrooms and areas for passive recreation, converting lawns to natural areas reduces maintenance costs, adds interesting and colorful plantings, controls soil erosion, and provides valuable wildlife habitat.

If you’re a runner or triathlete then this will seem familiar to you. Every spring you anticipate the snow melting so you can start training for your first 5K or 10K. You look forward to getting up early on a crisp weekend morning, lacing up your sneakers, hopping in the car and heading over to register for your first race. The race starts at 9 o’clock, so you get there around 8 a.m. and stand in line at the registration tent (with all the other shivering, scantily clad athletes). As you hang out at the gear check area, waiting until the last possible moment you have to take off your nice warm sweatshirt and sweatpants, you begin to look around at the race setup. You notice the start/finish structure, all the different tents (registration, pre-registration, volunteer check-in, goody bag/T-shirt, food, VIP, media), the sponsor banners hung all over the place, the tables of water and Gatorade cups, and you start to wonder how do they actually set all this up? Click here to find out.

Of all the facilities we cover—from aquatic complexes to yoga studios—one of the main challenges they all have in common is finding the right flooring.

Of course, a facility’s flooring needs are as vast and diverse as its program offerings. Not to mention other little considerations like design, installation, maintenance issues, and, oh yeah, cost. The whole process of choosing the best sports surface can get complicated quickly—and that’s even before you even start worrying about friction coefficients, force reductions, ball rebound or ISO 9001 standards—all that fun technical stuff. You definitely, well, have to watch your step.

This special section is devoted exclusively to helping you understand and choose the right sports surfaces, whatever your needs and budget, indoors and out. From industry standards and vocabulary to flooring categories and characteristics, this report will help you figure out which surfaces work best for what uses and programs, examining all kinds of factors from aesthetics and durability to performance and safety.

Does your facility have the right identity? Find out how to cost-effectively make indoor spaces more inviting, energizing and engaging for patrons and staff. With the right balance of light, color and materials, develop a unique image for your interior that is not only functional but also interesting and comfortable.

What goes into the whole journey of planning, funding and building multi-use trails and bridges? We'll follow the footsteps of some successful trail projects, giving you a glimpse of common obstacles, tips for gaining public support and some practical construction ideas.

Sometimes great things come from joining forces.

Faced with two old, deteriorating buildings and the need for more space and a fresh image, the Decatur Family YMCA and the YWCA of Decatur and Macon County in Illinois decided to jointly develop a new 67,750-square-foot facility known as the Greater Decatur Y.

What happens when you mix an athletic club, two ice rinks, a tennis center, skate park, professional salon and spa, and corporate offices?

You have just a portion of RDV Sportsplex in Orlando. Located within a 365,000 square-foot facility, this complex includes the Orlando Magic corporate offices as well as a complete health and wellness facility. With this year marking the Sportsplex’s fifth anniversary, some new additions to the facility are up and running, including a new home for the wheeled set.

In city and suburb, land development is occurring at breakneck pace. That vacant lot that seemed ideal for a playground? Gone. The old farm field that would have made a great ball field? Now filled with townhomes.

Park and recreation agencies may feel boxed in—that their opportunities to save parks and open space are slipping through their fingers. But being landlocked, without room to expand, does not mean being without options. You can create new parks, trails, greenways and open space on property that was once used for other purposes.

Our recreation landscapes often hold wonderful opportunities for educational experiences. Each place has a voice that carries messages about our past and our environment. Whether it is a rich cultural heritage or diverse natural ecosystems, the greatest challenges recreation providers face are how to best communicate that message to visitors and gain funding for the project.

The results are in, and our competition winners have been chosen! With the hopes of highlighting the best and most interesting projects the recreation industry has to offer, our 2003 innovative facility picks are unveiled in special detailed profiles. We are proud to showcase these facilities—new or recently renovated, from community centers and universities to health clubs and aquatic complexes, and everything in between—that are helping to set standards of excellence in the recreation community.

Once relegated to the last and least of the wow-spaces in recreation and fitness facilities, restrooms and locker rooms are becoming the essential hook that catches new clients and keeps old ones coming back. Restrooms and locker rooms no longer have to choose between style and maintainability—two elements previously considered mutually exclusive. Find out how form and function in these spaces are keeping pace with demand for more comfortable, more residential and more family-friendly trends in facility design.

Throughout our careers, we’ve been pounded with the philosophy about providing excellent customer service. The customer is always right. Superb guest services are the key to profitability and growth. Certainly a stalwart goal. But some guests push the customer service envelope and our hospitality buttons just a little too far. Should we always acquiesce to the patron’s wishes? Maybe not. Join in the discussion.

With 75 million people in the United States over the age of 50, it’s no surprise that Baby Boomers are one of the most important growth markets for recreation facilities and health clubs. Companies of all types are trying to figure out how to market to this consumer goldmine, and it is safe to say community centers and health clubs are looking at ways to cater to this group as well.

Twenty years ago the safety commission told us to make our playgrounds safer. Today's playground manufacturers and designers are finally showing us how to make those safe playgrounds fun and, more significantly, fun for children of all abilities. Playgrounds are once again swinging into action with more active components, more thrill factor and more creative fun for everyone.

Think your zero-depth entry and giant water slide put your pool on the cusp of cool? Think again. The best and most entertaining facilities today are more than just a collection of fun water features. They're well planned fantasylands with a central theme carried throughout. We'll explain how to create a winning motif for your facility, how to design your park, pick the right play components and much more.

What a difference a little lighting makes. With the right setup, you can transform the look and feel of any space, from a gym to natatorium to locker room. We examine how you can maximize customer comfort by using light and controlling noise and sound. From preconstruction tips to fixing problem areas in your current facility, we'll help you design right for sound and light.

Although a new YMCA hasn’t been built in Manhattan for 70 years, the new $35 million McBurney Y has made the wait well worth it. The 67,000-square-foot McBurney Y features a health and wellness center, paddleball courts, and a perimeter running track, but the focal point of the facility is the 7,000-square-foot natatorium.

The context is an urban park in Brooklyn. Paved in asphalt and lined by chain-link fence, the site is surrounded by a housing development known as the Williamsburg Houses, one of the best examples of 1930s modernism.

Enter the client: the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), which had federal funds and an ambitious program to build high-quality community centers for the recreational, educational and cultural needs of public housing communities throughout New York City. When NYCHA decided to renovate the 24 low-scale residences, it sponsored a design competition for a new recreational facility of outstanding caliber to complement the noteworthy buildings.

It’s not every day that a new type of park is born. In this case it’s an Aqua Park—not to be confused with a waterpark or splash play area, but more like a water playground of sorts.

Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and The Coca-Cola Company are the proud parents of Caylana’s Castle Cove, the 20,000-square-foot aqua park, which offers families a chance to play and test their skills on a series of challenges from floating rock-climbing walls to aquatic trampolines.

Just as proper diet and exercise help human beings live healthier lives, preventive maintenance is the key to getting the most out of exercise equipment. Preventing service calls and keeping exercise machines running with minimal downtime requires more than just wiping down equipment and reporting malfunctioning units to your technician. A regular program of care truly can extend the life of your equipment and save money in the long run.

When selecting the right restroom and locker room accessories, it’s important to first analyze the usage factors of these environments and your facility’s maintenance practices. This will assist in reducing future replacement costs and ongoing custodial expense. The overall goal is to make sure you provide attractive, functional facilities for your patrons at the very lowest cost.

Builders and planners of public sports and recreation facilities should be aware of the increasing popularity of a national voluntary movement to apply stringent "green building" standards to new construction and major renovation projects.

With academic degrees and years of experience in exercise physiology or recreation, unique men and women bring their expertise to sailors serving at sea. They are civilian Navy Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) professionals, affectionately known as "Fit Bosses" or "Fun Bosses." Their mission: to help create a culture of fitness and personnel readiness in the fleet by improving morale and reducing the stress of deployment.

Few aspects of recreational areas are so necessary yet so replete with challenges as outdoor restrooms. They need to be ADA-accessible, clean, low-maintenance, eco-friendly and able to function without much supervision. Oh, and don't forget they tend to attract vandals. We look at how you juggle all these to make a versatile restroom facility.

When it comes to keeping kids entertained and interested, children's programming is family affair. More and more recreational facilities are expanding their programming to include activities for the whole family. Check some of the most successful endeavors.

Outdoor sports lighting is much more difficult than just flipping a switch. Find out how to balance budgets, performance and dark sky proponents and still light your sports field professionally.

Park and rec districts have long transcended Little Leagues and pools, but nature is the latest growth area. Across the nation, rec facilities are adding naturalists, biologists, outdoor guides and animal specialists among others to accommodate the growth of nature-oriented programming. This includes nature interpretations, wildlife centers, orienteering, ecosystem restoration and other types of outdoor programming.

Imagine a place where patrons can both catch the latest Hollywood flick and then work off all that movie-theater popcorn.

Well, these two seeming polar opposites on the exertion spectrum have merged into one facility: the Mavericks Sports Club and Mavericks Cinema 3 in Moorpark, Calif.

They say it’s like no game you’ve ever played before. Some call it a live-action video game or more technically, an interactive "ball play" attraction. Whatever it is, it’s fun.

And it gets kids moving. In fact, you’ll find whole families running around, climbing, sliding, sorting, vacuuming and, of course, dodging foam balls whizzing through the air.

Welcome to Wiley’s Woods, a $4 million, 20,000-square-foot, four-story play structure at the Great Wolf Lodge in Wisconsin Dells.

Nationally, there is estimated to be between 29 and 40 million children playing organized sports annually. By implementing a written performance psychology curriculum for sports teams, all those millions of children can grow up practicing the mental skills that can make people more successful and satisfied in their lives.

To most observers, some playgrounds appear to suit the needs of the children quite well. During recess they are full of laughing, screaming kids who appear to be doing a good job of blowing off excess energy. But many playgrounds can be chronic underachievers. Find out how one Florida elementary school created its own high-performance playground to get kids moving.

Putting together a top-notch fitness facility, from a hotel workout room to a stadium-sized megacenter, means making dozens of decisions on an amazing variety of necessities, amenities and luxuries. Decision-makers must winnow down hundreds of choices for the things their centers need. Our special pullout guide helps lay out how—and what—to choose when it comes to designing and equipping fitness centers.

Could your trees or topiary be doing more for your facility? The right outdoor planning can help bring more visitors to a site, save money, and enhance both image and functionality. From layout to basic aesthetic concepts, we talk to the experts and provide landscape basics for even the most horticulturally challenged.

Land. They’re not making any more of it. Few things will change the entire direction of a recreation program like the purchase of new land. Fraught with legal and economic difficulties, land purchases can be harrowing, grinding affairs for the recreational facility manager. But we look at some of the new partnerships and ideas that have made buying (or acquiring) land cheaper, easier and more rewarding.

If you think a place with a name like Rocky Mount, Va., situated on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, sounds like a picturesque spot, you would be right. In fact, the town’s new crown jewel of a playground at the Franklin County Family YMCA offers kids a stunning view from its 24-foot tower: On a clear day you can see 15 miles down the green valley.

In a region hit hard economically by industrial mill closures, the new playground has had a positive impact on the public at large. The same holds very much true for the Altavista Area YMCA’s playground in nearby Altavista, Va.

There are not many jobs less appealing than scrubbing and vacuuming a pool by hand. Ugh. Not to mention, all the chemicals, manpower and the time commitment involved. And even then, your pool might not be as clean as you think.

Needless to say, it was certainly not a chore cherished by the aquatic staff for the eight-lane, 25-meter pool at the Cook/Douglas Recreation Center at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. Their old-school pool maintenance routine seemed downright primitive, sucking up a few hours a day at least several days a week. Find out how they learned to clean up their act.

Stadiums, by nature, are supposed to be designed to give spectators the best view of the action on the playing field. But in the case of the newly renovated Folsom Field at the University of Colorado at Boulder, fans are also treated to some spectacular scenery courtesy of Mother Nature. Glorious glaciers and high peaks serve as the backdrop for touchdowns and tackles on the gridiron.

Play is a process by which children learn. Similarly, renovating a play environment is a process by which both parents and facility managers learn that they have the ability to successfully create an innovative playground for a unique early childhood educational program.

What’s the secret to designing an indoor waterpark resort to make it a destination that creates an atmosphere that leaves guests with such a memorable experience that they return time and again? The answer is in the design details.