In 25 years of covering the managed recreation, sports and fitness facilities industry, we’ve seen a lot of trends come, and some trends go. And as we continue to bring you the latest news, most up-to-date coverage of innovations and best practices and more, we’ve taken stock of important trends that have had a major influence on the way things work—trends that have had an impact on planning, that have changed the way facilities look and operate, and that have found a foothold and grown in a big way.
To celebrate our 25th anniversary, we’re going to run down 25 of some of the most important industry trends, with a caveat, of course. Whittling a list of trends down to just 25 is a challenging job, and we acknowledge that what we think is most impactful might be vastly different from your view. Think we missed something important? Send a note to [email protected], and maybe we’ll include your thoughts in an upcoming issue.
We’ll start off with some general trends that apply across the industry—and, indeed, around the world in some cases. From there, we’ll take a peek into trends from aquatics, parks, sports, fitness and more.
Cost Recovery, or Running Like a Business
One of the biggest trends over the past 25 years has been a sea change in the way facilities are funded and operated—especially publicly owned facilities. While municipal parks departments, colleges and universities, schools and school districts and other facilities are still largely funded through district taxes, along with grants and donations, more and more recreation and aquatic facilities are expected to operate at least in part like a business, collecting fees for participation or membership, increasing revenues through facility rentals and advertising or sponsorships, or otherwise finding ways to operate “in the black,” so to speak.
As an extension of this trend, some facilities rely on one part of their operation to help fund others. For example, many organizations with aquatic facilities must rely on the revenue generated in other parts of their operations to subsidize their offerings. (And in fact, our 2024 State of the Industry Report showed that 70.4% of aquatic respondents’ operations were subsidized with funding from other sources, while just 20.3% said their aquatic facility revenues funded their aquatic operations.)
As part of this trend of finding ways to do more with less, partnerships have become more common over the past 25 years. We ran our first entire feature on finding ways to improve your offerings and operations through partnerships in the February 2004 issue, offering examples of facilities that shared funding or space. In 2024, 85.4% of respondents to the Industry Report survey said they currently partner with other organizations. This number has held fairly steady since the study was launched in 2007, when 85.8% of respondents reported that they partnered with other organizations.
The Rise of Data
The past quarter century has seen the emergence of a number of important industry studies, beginning with our own State of the Industry Report, launched in 2007. With the 19th edition of the report coming in 2025, we’ve been measuring and analyzing recreation, sports and fitness facilities for nearly two decades in order to report on a variety of aspects of operations, from construction plans and budgets, to programming, amenities, staffing and more. Stay tuned for your chance to participate in the Industry Report survey in January and February 2025!
Of course, we’re not alone in offering data to the industry. Hard on the heels of the Industry Report, the American College of Sports Medicine launched it’s American Fitness Index in 2008, providing “data, materials, resources and connections to help city officials, public health professionals and community based organizations assess the fitness of their residents, identify opportunities to improve health outcomes and enable physically active lifestyles.” Once a year, ACSM publishes its list of Fittest Cities. In 2024, Arlington, Va., Washington, D.C., and Seattle topped the list.
In 2009, the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) launched its Park Metrics, a “comprehensive source of benchmarks and insights for park and recreation agencies,” assisting in effective “management and planning of their operating resources and capital facilities.” You can build customized reports and use the data to help gain funding support and improve your operations.
In 2001, Trust for Public Land started using GIS (or geographic information systems) to help cities find the highest-need areas for conservation. In 2012, it launched its ParkScore Index, which ranks the most populated U.S. cities on equity, access, investment, amenities and acreage—as well as park access levels, covering nearly 14,000 cities and towns across the country. In 2024, the best city park systems, as determined by the index, were Washington, D.C., Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn. This tool doesn’t just rank cities according to the quality of their park systems, it also provides important data to help local leaders determine where they should direct their resources in order to grow access to parks, for example through the 10 Minute Walk Campaign, with a goal of ensuring that everyone in U.S. cities has “access to a quality park within a 10-minute walk of their home.”
And in 2018, we expanded on our longstanding success with the State of the Industry Report by launching an aquatics-specific report, the Aquatics Industry Report. Stay tuned for the seventh edition of that report, which covers aquatic operations specifically, and will be published in our January 2025 issue.
This kind of detailed industry research offers a lot of data that facilities can use to benchmark their operations against others in the field, but this is not the only way data is being used to help fine-tune operations. Increasingly, data is being collected in other ways to help facilities improve their operations, from counters that keep track of people using facilities to get a handle on peak use to trash receptacles that alert agencies when they’re approaching full, pool monitoring systems that keep track of chemical use and more. Our next trend has helped enable this kind of data collection, as well as offering many other capabilities.
Technology Changes Everything
The dot-com bubble peaked almost 25 years ago, in March of 2000, but the technological development that has taken place since then has vastly changed the way facilities operate. There is now software to help facilities manage their operations, from staffing and scheduling to marketing, managing signups and payments and more.
The first iPhone was introduced in 2007, and now, folks who want to participate in park programs can use their smartphones to sign up and pay, and folks who manage those programs can use their smartphones to keep track of it all.
In addition to widely used recreation management and asset management software, there’s also a host of apps and tools that facility operators can use to do everything from managing their pool water’s chemistry to turning the lights on or off at their ballfield. Digital tools are useful in a wide range of applications, from digital locker locks to cashless concessions and more. Restroom doors can be programmed to lock at night. Motion sensors can turn the lights on when a person enters a space. And health club members can access workouts at the touch of a button.
As early as the May/June 2000 issue, we were talking with property managers about their use of chemical automation systems that “test water from the pools to constantly measure the balance of water flowing through [their] sensors. The system automatically dispenses the chosen sanitizers or pH adjustments… The system can also alert the operator to low- or high-alkalinity problems.”
In the next issue, July/August 2000, we highlighted the City of Toronto’s use of software to help manage its parks and rec program registration using software first introduced in 1985. In 2001’s coverage, this kind of switch to online catalogs for park programming was still fairly novel.
Nowadays, Wi-Fi is a fairly standard offering at recreation, sports and fitness facilities, with more than half (51.8%) of respondents to the 2024 Industry Report survey indicating they have such an amenity. But it was only in 2004 that the first Wi-Fi devices—PDAs, cell phones and TVs—hit the market. Facilities gradually adapted, and the September 2005 issue saw the first mention of Wi-Fi access in a brief news item about Monroe Park in Richmond, Va., the first park in that municipality to offer Wi-Fi.
Conservation & Sustainability
Environmental sustainability and conservation initiatives are obviously not new initiatives in just the past 25 years—the National Park Service, with its land preservation and conservation initiatives, was created in 1916, after all. However, conservation and sustainability have had a major impact across the board on the design, construction, operation and maintenance of recreation and fitness facilities, and as the effects of climate change intensify (all of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2014), this kind of resilient, sustainable approach is only growing more important.
Environmental resilience is now one of the three pillars of the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA), the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) centers its mission around environmentally sustainable design, and facilities across the country aim to conserve resources, from using less water in drought-stricken areas to deploying products made from recycled materials and more.
We’ve been covering this angle practically since the magazine launched. As early as the March/April 2000 issue, we were highlighting example-setting parks using recycled materials, with Palm Bay (Fla.) Parks and Recreation Department’s use of recycled plastic lumber for its signage. A November 2001 feature story on grounds maintenance focused on eco-friendly practices like native plants, higher cutting heights for turf, reducing chemical inputs and improving soil health. That same issue also featured a story on conserving energy at the swimming pool by covering the pool when not in use, reducing evaporation and its associated chemical and heat loss. October 2002 was the first time we ran an entire feature story on conservation, with a focus on water conservation, replacing incandescent lights and solar applications.
In September 2003, we reported on then-new building standards created by the U.S. Green Building Council. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards, or LEED, continues to offer a way to demonstrate a commitment to sustainable design. “One of the first municipal recreation centers in the country to go through the rather arduous LEED certification process was the North Boulder Recreation Center in Boulder, Colo., designed by Barker Rinker Seacat Architecture,” the 2003 story stated.
There are now more than 100,000 LEED-certified buildings and more than 200,000 LEED-accredited professionals around the world, with Washington, D.C., Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, California and Maryland leading the U.S. in terms of LEED-certified square footage per capita, according to the USGBC.
Diversity & Inclusion
While the phrase “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” has gained some negative political attention recently, the importance of providing access and engagement with recreation, sports and fitness regardless of age, gender, economic status, physical ability, religion or any of the myriad things that make us all different has been a major driver of decisions in facilities for the past quarter-century. This trend affects everything from accessibility and, more recently, inclusion, for those with physical or developmental disabilities to increasing access to public parks, fitness and more in underserved communities. In recent years, it has been driving the development of multigenerational facilities, from diverse playground offerings to waterparks, YMCAs, rec centers and more that aim to offer programming and amenities that are inviting to everyone from Gen Alpha (born between 2013 and 2025) to the Greatest Generation (born 1901 to 1927).
Equity holds a place as a major initiative for many of the industry’s leading associations and is one of the NRPA’s pillars. “NRPA strives for a future where all people have access to the benefits of quality parks and recreation,” the association states on its website. It adds that our differences are “… magnified by systemic inequities, creating different lived experiences. Park and recreation professionals are uniquely positioned to address these challenges when they center equity in their programs, policies and practices.” The NRPA is not alone. Other industry organizations also center equity and diversity as part of their mission, from the American Camp Association to USA Swimming and beyond.
We’ve been there all along, with a story on compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (first passed in July 1990) in the September/October 2000 issue, with that same issue featuring a story about Neptune Circle in South Padre Island, Texas, deploying rubber mats to improve beach accessibility for wheelchair-bound visitors.
In a November 2001 story about cultural trends that affect programming, Julie Coates wrote, “Not only is our society seeing increased age diversity but also a major shift in the ethnic and racial makeup of our country. The white majority is steadily being reduced, and projections are that by mid-century, there will not be a white majority. …This has tremendous implications for our programs, since our audiences have been primarily white, well-educated, middle-class adults.” In April 2009 we ran our first feature story on providing recreation opportunities in underserved communities.
AQUATIC TRENDS
Diversification of Design & Offerings
Swimming pools and aquatic facilities have seen a dramatic change in the past 25 years, with the old rectangular community pools of the past increasingly being replaced with a wider variety of options—new pool shapes, zero-depth entry, lazy rivers, waterslides, poolside climbing, splash play areas and much more.
As early as the January/February 2000 issue, we reported, “As aging pools reach the end of their useful life, facility managers are exploring the myriad of new opportunities available—and the swimming pool isn’t always at the top of the list. Sprays, cannons, slides and specialized programs make today’s aquatic parks more fun to visit.”
In November 2001, we featured a story on making pools more entertaining with more leisure pools, including at universities. “On the municipal front, there’s an undeniable wave of traditional neighborhood pools undergoing impressive renovations or being replaced altogether with mini or sometimes full-blown community waterparks.”
This diversification of offerings also applies to programming, with a veritable explosion of new ideas for engaging people with the water. We reported in November 2001 about popular fitness classes like kickboxing, spinning and yoga being adapted for the pool environment, and by January/February 2002, dive-in movies were becoming a big thing.
Innovations that have helped aquatic facility managers offer more diverse programming, helping them increase the number of people visiting their pools—and hopefully, the revenue from entrance fees and concession purchases that goes with that—have featured often in our annual Problem Solver Idea Book. In August 2009, for example, we ran stories featuring poolside climbing walls as well as using inflatables to create a more diverse array of recreational program offerings.
Aquatic Safety Advances
Just as the types of pools and programs offered in aquatic facilities have grown more diverse, the methods of maintaining a safe environment have also improved and diversified. This includes simple solutions like testing swimmers’ abilities and requiring life vests for those who aren’t strong swimmers to improving training and education for lifeguards, as well as the professionals who handle pool chemicals.
Improving indoor air quality at natatoriums has become an important mission. Already seen as an issue in our November/December 2000 issue, with swimmers at indoor pools complaining of skin irritation and burning eyes, we covered a facility that used an environmental control system to reduce chloramines—a type of combined chlorine that off-gases into the air above the pool’s water. Chloramines can irritate eyes, skin and the respiratory tract, and can even contribute to corrosion of metals in the aquatic environment.
Nowadays, ventilation standards have improved, and products whose sole purpose is to evacuate chloramines are available for both new natatorium builds and renovations alike.
According the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from 1999 to 2018-2021, the most recent years for which data is available, there has been a 9% decrease in the drowning rate in the U.S., from 1.44 deaths to 1.31 deaths per 100,000 people. But drowning is still the second leading cause of unintentional injury death for children ages 5 to 14, and each year in the United States sees more than 4,000 unintentional drowning deaths. The National Drowning Prevention Alliance (NDPA) was founded in 2004 with a mission of “elevating awareness to educate, advocate, innovate and equip to prevent drownings.” The alliance hosts the annual National Water Safety Conference, alongside the annual conference of the Association of Aquatic Professionals, providing education and networking, and helping to spread awareness of drowning as well as prevention tools and strategies.
A well-trained lifeguarding staff is the most important tool for commercial facilities that want to prevent drowning, and lifeguard training has also come a long way in the past 25 years. In 2015, the American Red Cross debuted its Aquatic Attraction Lifeguarding program, expanding training for lifeguards who watch over waterslides and shallow water attractions, and most recently, the Red Cross added virtual reality capabilities to its lifeguard training.
Alongside improvements in training approaches, companies have innovated to offer products that help improve pool surveillance. In January/February 2001, we reported on a “new computer-aided drowning detection system,” based on a network of cameras mounted above and below the water’s surface. Though they are not meant to replace lifeguards, such technologies and products have continued to develop and improve.
Entrapment issues were a common topic in our earliest issues, and in November 2001, we reported that the state of Illinois had adopted rules aimed at preventing pool entrapments by requiring an anti-suction safety switch. At that point, a number of state legislatures had enacted such laws. It wasn’t until December 2007 that the U.S. Congress passed the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act, extending such protection to pools across the nation. The law, which went into effect on Dec. 19, 2008, requires that drain covers comply with entrapment protection requirements specified by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American National Standards Institute (ASME/ANSI).
Secondary Disinfection
Recreational water illnesses (RWIs) like Cryptosporidium featured often in the early years of Recreation Management, with plenty of advice on how to deal with incidences and shutdowns. In October 2005, we ran our first column highlighting the use of UV technology to combat chlorine-resistant pathogens (as well as chloramines). UV, wrote Ron George, then of Engineered Treatment Systems, “is growing in acceptance dramatically across the U.S. aquatics industry. It seems not if but when a facility old or new will add it to protect their bathers, equipment and structures.” And in July/August 2006, the National Swimming Pool Foundation (since renamed the Pool & Hot Tub Alliance) wrote about the unique hazard of crypto at recreational facilities, “…since chlorine inactivation is slow and filtration is not particularly effective. As a result the number of outbreaks is consistently increasing… A third leg of protection, like UV, is likely to become the norm in the decade to come, according to the CDC.”
And indeed, the Model Aquatic Health Code (MAHC), first released in 2014, recommends secondary disinfection systems for public pools, and especially for higher-risk aquatic facilities like splash play areas. In addition to UV systems, ozone and AOP (advanced oxidation process) systems have been developed to address this issue.
Accessibility
Improving access to swimming pools for patrons with disabilities has featured regularly in our pages in the past 25 years, but it wasn’t until 2010 that the ADA Standards for Accessible Design were revised to specifically address swimming pools. According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, which maintains the ADA.gov website, for the first time in 2010, the standards “… set minimum requirements for making swimming pools, wading pools and spas accessible.” All newly constructed and altered pools were required to meet the requirements, and public entities (including park districts, schools and more) were required to “bring existing pools into compliance” with the standards “to the extent that it is readily achievable to do so.”
The ADA.gov website states, “The requirements for newly constructed and existing pools will ensure that, going forward, people with disabilities can enjoy the same activities—a community swim meet; private swim lessons; a hotel pool—at the same locations and with the same independence, ease and convenience as everyone else.”
The standards established categories of pools (large and small) and required that large pools have two accessible means of entry, with at least one being a pool lift or sloped entry, and that small pools have one means of entry, either a pool lift or sloped entry.
In our 2012 State of the Industry Report, we asked aquatic respondents whether their facilities were in compliance with the new ADA requirements. More than three-quarters (75.9%) said they were in compliance by this point.
Splash Play
Whether you call them splash pads, splash play areas, spraygrounds or some other moniker, there’s no denying that these zero-depth interactive-fountain-meets-playground amenities have been a major trend of the past 25 years. Just look at these numbers: In 2008, just 11.7% of respondents to the Industry Report survey said they had a splash play area; in 2024, 26.6% had splash play. What’s more, splash play has been among the top planned additions for respondents in every year since the survey was launched.
Of course, we’ve been covering this trend from the beginning, and manufacturers of splash play products have continued to innovate, with new products and new ways of engaging in splash play fun developing over time. In the May/June 2000 issue, we featured Kasey Meadows Park in Hickory Hills, Ill., which had added a splash pad with “several colorful play components, including ground sprays, water cannons, a rainbow arch spray and geysers that shoot water up.” This splash pad featured automation, allowing the water to run on demand.
Now that the oldest splash play areas have seen more than two decades of use, we’ve seen plenty of ideas on how to update them, as well as how to keep them fresh and exciting with manufacturers offering spray elements that can be switched out.
At the same time, ideas about the best ways to design splash play areas have taken hold, with one concept—the development of a progression from gentler sprays and calm experiences for new or younger users through to more invigorating and exciting experiences for users looking for greater thrills—becoming dominant. This design concept also helps support the inclusive nature of splash pads, which generally offer plenty of room for those using mobility devices to maneuver.
The way splash pad water is handled has also changed over time, and while some facilities feature flow-through designs where the water is used once and then either drains away or is captured for re-use somewhere else (such as in landscape irrigation), others feature recirculating systems similar to swimming pools, with primary (chlorine) and secondary (UV or some other method) treatment systems ensuring the reused water remains safe and free from pathogens.
There are also myriad offshoot products related to splash play, including water tables and other amenities that allow visitors to manipulate the flow of water and the latest, cooling stations that are aiming to help combat the problems associated with extreme heat by helping residents keep cool.
PARK & PLAYGROUND TRENDS
Inclusive Play
While inclusion and accessibility have been important industry-wide trends, expanding access to amenities and programming of all kinds, the development of inclusive playgrounds have been perhaps the most obvious example of this changing trend over time.
In March/April 2000, we reported on proposed guidelines adding a new chapter on play areas to the ADA Accessibility Guidelines. Those rules were at the “Final Rule” stage—unlikely to change any further, by our January/February 2001 issue. And in November 2001, we see the first mention in the magazine of going “beyond ADA”: “… there is a distinct difference in playgrounds that meet ADA requirements and those that are truly usable by all children.”
Initially, expanding accessibility to the playground largely meant the addition of ramps, along with bridges wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair. But as playground equipment manufacturers have come up with new ways to encourage real inclusion on the playground, the concept of inclusive play has evolved beyond mere accessibility for those in wheelchairs to include considerations for a broad range of children with disabilities, from children with cochlear implants or visual disabilities to developmentally disabled children or those on the autism spectrum.
The first time we used the word “inclusive” in relation to playground design was in the July/August 2002 issue. However, this article states, “Inclusiveness promotes social interaction, and even though each child may not be able to climb on the same steps or slide on the same slides, as long as there is comparable play equipment next to each other, there is the ability to learn from each other.” Over time, the concept of inclusion has evolved, and nowadays inclusive playgrounds allow children of all abilities to play alongside one another even at the top of a towering structure.
A September 2003 story on accessible playgrounds stated, “Ten years after ADA, the concept of universal accessibility—bringing children with disabilities not just to the playground equipment but engaging them with their able-bodied peers on the equipment—has taken flight.” That “flight” has led to the development of a tremendous range of inclusive play products, and that development will only continue to increase the opportunities for children to play alongside others regardless of their abilities.
Hand-in-hand with the development of inclusive play, we’ve seen the concept of multigenerational playgrounds take hold. We first started reporting on this trend in the March 2007 issue, and in this issue (see page 28), you’ll see that spaces designed to encourage people of all ages and abilities to play alongside one another continues to be a top trend dominating playground design.
Playground Safety & Perceived Risk
As a greater understanding of playground safety and the value of perceived risk in play has developed, playground designs have become more innovative while continuing to maintain as safe an environment as possible, so long as they are built to established standards and properly maintained.
Founded in 1995 by Dr. Donna Thompson of the University of Northern Iowa with a grant from the CDC, the National Program for Playground Safety developed a National Action Plan for the Prevention of Playground Injuries, based on four elements of playground safety: supervision, age-appropriateness, fall surfaces, and equipment maintenance. “By setting standards in each of these areas, … NPPS began to spread the word among the public education system, parents and civic leaders about playground safety for new as well as existing structures.”
As in many industries, playground safety is reliant on certification, both for people and for products. The first Playground Safety Inspector certification course and exam took place in 1993, just ahead of the NRPA Congress in San Jose, Calif. Since than more than 75,000 people have taken the course, and today there are nearly 7,500 Certified Playground Safety Inspectors, or CPSIs, around the world.
On the product side, the International Play Equipment Manufacturers Association (IPEMA) provides a product certification program for play equipment as well as surfacing materials, validating these products’ conformance to relevant ASTM standards.
It is within this framework of research and advocacy, as well as certification, that playgrounds have continued to evolve, offering children higher levels of perceived risk (for example, with higher towers, rope play and more), while maintaining an environment that protects them from extreme danger. The surface beneath the playground—from loose-fill surfacing like engineered wood fiber and rubber mulch to unitary surfaces like poured-in-place and rubber tiles—has been an essential component of playground safety over the past 25 years, as nearly 80% of playground injuries are caused by falls to the surface.
Screen Time Competition
The challenge of screen time in children is a relatively new phenomenon, relatively speaking. The first screen time guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics were developed in 1999, but as smartphones, gaming and computers have become as (or more) common as television viewing, screen time in the U.S. has risen as well. According to the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, children 8 to 12 spend four to six hours a day watching or using screens, while teens spend as much as nine hours on the screen. Too much screen time can lead to myriad problems for kids, from sleep, mood and weight problems to not getting enough time outdoors, a drop in physical activity, poor self-image and body image, and less time spent learning other ways to relax and have fun.
As screen time has increasingly become a problem for kids of all ages (one study even found kids getting more than an hour of screen time at 6 months old), parks and playground have evolved ways to compete. Some play manufacturers have developed electronic games that get kids (and adults!) moving and having fun. Others have developed elaborate themes, adventurous play products and more that boost play value, helping playgrounds provide a thrilling experience that can outcompete games and screen options.
For teens, the challenge might seem steeper, but here parks have become more diverse, with offerings like skateparks and BMX parks providing an outlet for kids who are less likely to get involved in more traditional youth sports programs.
As part of this trend, encouraging people of all ages to just get outdoors has become mission critical for parks and other outdoor facilities. In October 2004, we featured our first guest column on natural learning and nature play, and in January 2008, we took a look at “Recreation’s Push to Address ‘Nature Deficit Disorder.’ ” The article described a back-to-nature movement that aims to “acquaint today’s obesity-prone, technology-obsessed youth with the outdoors and the environment as a whole. …Calling for a ‘child-nature reunion,’ the 2005 book ‘Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder’ by Richard Louv points to kids’ sedentary, indoor lifestyle as a cause of the childhood obesity epidemic…”
Screen time certainly hasn’t declined in the past 25 years, and competing for the attention of potential park-goers of all ages will surely continue to drive the development of new amenities and programming at parks, recreation, sports and fitness facilities for the foreseeable future.
Dog Parks
The New York Times reports that the first U.S. dog park was founded in 1979 in Berkeley, Calif., but dog parks have really taken off over the past 25 years. In fact, just 10.6% of respondents to the 2008 Industry Report survey said they had a dog park; in 2024, 25.6% of respondents had a dog park, and 45.3% of respondents from parks had a dog park. And, like splash play areas, dog parks are almost always found among the top planned additions for survey respondents.
We featured our first dog park on these pages in a case study in March 2002, the Redwing and Woodstock dog parks in Virginia Beach, both of which opened in 2000. “Each dog park is surrounded by a wood split rail fence with wire mesh, and rules are posted at the gate, especially about controlling and cleaning up after your dogs.” The facing ad features a water fountain with a dog fountain, the first time that this product appeared in Rec Management.
In January 2009, we ran our first feature story on dog parks, then “a growing community trend.” These days, you’ll find dog parks and dog park products featured regularly in these pages, and the advice on how to best design them has evolved. Far from a mere bit of fencing and posted rules, dog parks in the 2020s often include agility equipment, water fountains, dog wash stations, seating and shade, and many also offer separate play areas for large and small dogs, to ensure safer play for little pups.
In 2009 the Trust for Public Land started keeping track of dog parks as part of its ParkScore Index, and in 2024, Boise, Idaho, was named the best park system for dogs, “… with a nation-leading 7.6 dog parks per 100,000 residents, outscoring Portland, Ore., and Henderson, Nev.”
Trails & Active Transportation
When the Rails to Trails Conservancy opened its doors in 1986, there were just 250 miles of open rail-trails—former railroad corridors converted into multiuse trails for walking, biking, horseback riding and more. Today, there are more than 26,000 miles of rail-trails providing safe places for people to get active and connect to nature. And that’s just one organization’s data on trails.
The development of trails, along with active infrastructure like bike lanes, has been a major success story of the past 25 years. Trails are lauded for their myriad benefits, from their ability to provide alternative transportation routes to and from parks, downtowns and other areas of interest to the way they can connect people with nature and get them moving in a time when sedentarism is on the rise.
In the April 2005 issue, an article contributed by ASLA highlighted National Landscape Architecture Month, with the theme “Design for Active Living.” The theme was meant to place focus on “… the ways community design and access to parks and recreational facilities affect residents’ daily activity levels and, in turn, their overall health.”
According to the National Association of Realtors, living near trails and greenways can raise property values an average of 3% to 5% and even as high as 15%, with no increase in crime.
Trails, whether for walking or biking or fitness trails with dedicated equipment, have consistently appeared in the top additions planned by respondents to the Industry Report survey.
Outdoor Fitness
Developing trails to get people places under their own steam has been one way to improve access to parks—and access to places to get fit. Another important way parks are bringing fitness to people is through outdoor fitness areas.
Health and wellness is the third pillar of NRPA’s mission. As the association’s website states: “NRPA supports park and recreation professionals in implementing community-driven solutions that address critical public health issues and improve the conditions where people live, learn, play and grow.
“NRPA believes that park and recreation professionals are key to a fully integrated public health system and play a vital role in meeting the evolving health needs of their communities. They are uniquely positioned to create, in partnership with the community, public health leaders and other local organizations, upstream solutions that catalyze and transform their systems into holistic and people-centered community wellness hubs.”
In the February 2004 issue, we featured our first story on outdoor fitness equipment: a fitness trail with 10 wellness stations installed along a walking path, specifically designed for older adults. And in September 2008, we saw the first introduction on our pages of the outdoor gym concept. In September 2016 we started regularly featuring deeper dives into the planning, design, equipping and programming of outdoor fitness areas.
We first started tracking outdoor fitness with the Industry Report survey in June 2015, when 17.2% of respondents included it. In 2024, 27.2% of respondents said they currently have outdoor fitness equipment or fitness trails—40.7% for respondents from parks.
Waterfront Reclamation & Development
Another big development in parks and recreational space over the past 25 years has been the reclamation and development of waterfronts. While much of this development has taken place in urban areas, where land formerly used for industrial purposes has been redeveloped into riverwalks and waterfront parks, there has also been a multitude of smaller projects in local communities, as lakefronts, old quarries, rivers and more have been transformed into oases offering active and passive recreation.
The March 2006 issue included our first feature story on waterfronts, reporting that “… waterfronts are now transforming cities and their once ghostly downtown areas into vibrant communities complete with economic boom and ecological restoration.”
The nonprofit Projects for Public Spaces was reporting on waterfront developments as early as 2007, writing, “Over the past hundred years, shipping and industry have dispersed from riverfronts, seafronts, and lakefronts, making cities around the world rethink what to do in these prime locations—the birthplace, in most cases, of the city itself. As humans we are naturally drawn to explore the water’s edge…
“Making the transition from working waterfront to public gathering place is full of challenges, be it providing public access or identifying the activities best suited to a particular community and place. Today, more and more cities and towns are boldly taking on these challenges.”
The uses and developments that have come about over the past 25 years are widely varied, from quiet riverwalks with seating and perhaps an amphitheater, to parks that combine active and passive amenities on and off the water, from inflatables that encourage a day of adventure to disc golf, mini golf, concessions, picnic areas and more.
RECREATION, SPORTS & FITNESS
Rec & Wellness Centers
Who could deny the impact of the race to build ever more impressive college (and community) recreation centers over the past 25 years? For colleges and universities, this trend has been driven by the need to recruit new students, and for many campuses, the recreation center has become the centerpiece and a tour highlight for prospective students. Featuring a diverse array of amenities and programs, the best of the best often feature iconic climbing walls, indoor running tracks, well-appointed fitness centers, recreational pools, sports courts and more.
College and community recreation centers largely dominated the winner’s circle of our Innovative Architecture & Design Awards, which ran annually from May 2003 to May 2013. Here are just a few highlights:
- Recognized with an award in 2007, The Ohio State University Recreation and Physical Activity Center in Columbus was designed by Moody Nolan Inc., with construction of the enormous 600,000-square-foot, $153 million facility completed in September 2005. The five-level recreation center featured two natatoriums, more than 25,000 square feet of fitness space, a new aquatic facility, four gyms, four squash courts, 10 racquetball courts, a four-lane walking/jogging track, and five aerobic/multipurpose rooms.
- Recognized in 2012, the Colorado State University Student Recreation Center in Fort Collins, Colo., was designed by Hastings & Chivetta Architects. The 162,645-square-foot, $28 million facility featured a four-court gymnasium with elevated track, a MAC gym with two basketball courts, a natatorium, two 38-foot bridged climbing towers with a bouldering wall/cave area, a 22,800-square-foot fitness center, a lobby with seating and a smoothie bar, a wet classroom, multipurpose rooms, a spinning room, martial arts rooms and more.
- On the community side, and also recognized in 2012, the Central Park Recreation Center in Denver, designed by Sink Combs Dethlefs, was a 56,940-square-foot, $13.5 million facility featuring a gymnasium, fitness center, group exercise studios, a spinning studio, an indoor leisure pool, an indoor lap pool, a child-sitting center, a family lounge and activity space, multipurpose community rooms, locker rooms, outdoor fields and playgrounds, and trail links to the then-new 100-acre Central Park.
In many ways, rec centers act as a sort of microcosm reflecting many of the biggest trends of the past quarter century we’ve highlighted here. “Recreation centers have benefited greatly from advances in technology, exercise trends and design in the last 25 years,” said Jim Gabel, principal with Hastings & Chivetta Architects. “The advanced technology of weight and cardio equipment has impacted how and where people exercise. Recreation centers have developed hybrid and completely online classes to broaden their influence in their communities and increase use. More outdoor recreation has been a focus recently and has been increased more so as a result of COVID. Student and community interest in more functional training over traditional workout areas has been a focus over the last 15 to 20 years too.”
He added that the quality of materials and advances in sports flooring has increased over the past 25 years. In addition, he emphasized design developments that promote the health of people inside buildings, with an emphasis on sustainability, indoor air quality and the positive impact of natural daylight.
Active Aging
In the March/April 2000 issue, we reported on “one American demographic trend that will matter the most to health and fitness managers in the early 21st century: the aging of the U.S. population.” Baby boomers began reaching the age of 65 in 2011. As of the latter half of 2023, according to Forbes, around 10,000 baby boomers were retiring ever day, with 4 million retiring every year.
“As they continue to age, many baby boomers are actively challenging and rejecting stereotypes about aging,” said California State University, Northridge health sciences professor Stephan (Kyusuk) Chung. The CDC reports that more than half of this generation engages in regular physical exercise, and the Physical Activity Council states that baby boomers make up around one-third of the fitness industry’s clientele.
This has obviously had a major impact on recreation, sports and fitness facilities, as they must adjust their programming to take the needs of this aging cohort into account. While bingo night might still satisfy some aging Americans, expectations have changed, and they’re looking for facilities and programming that can support them in their wellness regimens and provide recreation in their retirement years.
The International Council on Active Aging (ICAA) was launched in October 2001, with a goal of inspiring researchers, governments, organizations, health and wellness professionals and older adults to work together to change how we view and respond to older citizens.
In 2010, the first so-called “baby boomer center” was opened to the public, The Summit at Central Park in Grand Prairie, Texas. Designed by Brinkley Sargent Wiginton Architects, the project’s goal is to accommodate people older than 50, with an indoor leisure pool, spa, walking track, theater and ballrooms.
The X Games Effect & Youth Sports Diversification
The X Games were first held in the summer of 1995 in Rhode Island and have now been held worldwide, featuring such sports as skateboarding, BMX, skiing, snowboarding and freestyle motocross. And just as the Olympic Games often influence people to try out featured sports, hype and publicity around the X Games encouraged a new generation of athletes to try out these adventurous and extreme sports.
In the September/October 2000 issue, we highlighted “a whole new generation” growing up with “a whole different set of expectations for recreational activities that suit them and for their spaces to play.” We were talking then about Generation Y, now better known as the millennials, and the story put the spotlight on skateparks and inline skateparks.
In January/February 2001, we reported that demand for facilities was exceeding supply as sports like skateboarding, indoor wall climbing and inline hockey were growing in popularity. The early years of the 21st century did indeed see a skatepark boom, and climbing facilities also increased in number.
Over the past 25 years, we’ve followed along as skatepark development matured. Parks and other recreation facilities often added skateparks as a way to encourage participation from the always-elusive teen and tween audience. These days, many of the modular skatepark products of the past have been retired, but a new generation of precast concrete skatepark products has risen to improve the experience for riders while providing longer-lasting ramps, quarter-pipes and more.
The development of BMX parks has proceeded alongside skateparks, with some parks allowing both sports and others creating separate spaces to accommodate these athletes.
Sport climbing and skateboarding both made their official Olympic Games debut at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, marking the progression of these sports from alt to mainstream.
At the same time that skateboarding and other extreme sports have been making waves, there has also been a diversification of sports offerings across the board. Where once, football, soccer, baseball and softball, basketball and volleyball dominated school and community sports programs, these days, youths, college students and adults alike can engage in a wider array of sports programs, including lacrosse, rugby, pickleball, ultimate frisbee and more.
With so many more offerings, it’s no surprise that the Sports & Fitness Industry Association’s 2024 U.S. Trends in Team Sports Report reported that 2024 saw the highest number of team sports participants since 2014, with 20 of the 24 sports the association tracks increasing their participation figures.
Surface Evolution
As sports have grown more diverse, so too have the surfaces on which they are played, both indoors and out.
In our July/August 2000 issue, we put an early spotlight on sports flooring, featuring “new” materials that provided options beyond the traditional hardwood and turf sports surfacing, including polyurethane, polyvinyl and rubber indoors, and artificial turf both inside and out.
Synthetic turf has changed dramatically from its earliest days, and the past 25 years have seen the development and improvement of synthetic turf systems that include infill and proper drainage, creating a safer, more playable surface. The materials used for infill have also evolved over time, and while crumb rubber is still dominant, other options like silica sand and cork have arisen as an alternative.
In 2007, 12.1% of respondents to the Industry Report survey said they had synthetic turf sports fields, a number that has more than doubled since, with 24.4% indicating they have synthetic turf in 2024—and 58.6% of respondents from colleges and universities in 2024 had synthetic turf fields.
At the same time, while hardwood court surfaces are still going strong, synthetic and modular alternatives have been developed that, like synthetic turf, can be easier to maintain while providing improved conditions for athletes. Likewise, fitness facilities have seen the introduction of new surface options that help reduce noise in weight rooms or improve resilience in aerobic areas.
Lighting & Scoreboard Updates
Sports lighting and scoreboards have also seen big changes in the past 25 years, improving the game-day experience for athletes, spectators and even facility neighbors. From the dot-matrix and even manual scoreboards of the past, LEDs have vastly changed scoreboards’ capabilities. Going from wired to wireless systems made it possible to update the scoreboard from anywhere. And the addition of videoboards have further transformed sports at all levels, offering facilities a way to entertain fans and even provide revenue support through advertising sponsorships.
Sports lighting has also seen a lot of development. Minimizing spill light has always been a challenge, and in the November/December 2000 issue, we covered upgraded lighting in Holiday Park in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The no-spill lights discussed in the article were “more expensive than regular metal halide fixtures” and had a shorter lamp life, but also dramatically concentrated the light, preventing spill from impacting neighbors. The introduction of LED sports lighting completely changed the game, providing longer-lasting lights that have a dramatic impact on maintenance staff, who no longer have to struggle with changing out lamps on a regular basis: LED lighting systems can last more than 50,000 hours, while the older metal halide lighting systems typically don’t reach more than 15,000 hours.
The Seattle Mariners were the first Major League Baseball team to incorporate LED stadium lighting, and University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., was the first National Football League venue to adopt LED lighting, both in 2015.
Changing Room Changes
In our July/August 2001 issue, locker rooms were still looking pretty bare-bones, but by May/June 2003, we were talking about locker room aesthetics. Bruce Lutz, then an associate principal with Ohlson Lavoie, said bringing upgrades into the locker room could really change members’ experience, highlighting simple upgrades like large mirrors, upgraded lighting, and changing ceiling and wall materials to better absorb sound. Then in July/August of that same year, an entire feature was focused on how locker room and restroom design “continues to go upscale to please patrons.” The improvement of locker room aesthetics would continue to take hold over the next decade.
In more recent years, other changes have come to the locker room. More inclusive locker rooms allow for gender differences, as well as ensuring that opposite-gender caretakers can bring their children or adult charges into a space, whether through the introduction of a third type of space—often called a family locker room—or by creating private changing and shower spaces with a larger, central area with lockers for all genders. We featured family locker rooms for the first time in May 2008.
Fitness Programming & Equipment Diversifies
Just as a diversity of offerings has come to the swimming pool and sports fields and courts, fitness programming and equipment have also grown more diverse.
In January/February 2000, we looked at “the future of fitness equipment,” highlighting advances like “user-friendly, simplified consoles,” total-body cross-trainers, compatibility with fitness networking and entertainment systems, and new and innovative equipment choices. In that same issue, Gary Rosenfield, with one of the premier fitness equipment suppliers of the time, said, “Strength equipment is still a mainstay, as are treadmills, but the spectrum of equipment is expanding. One of the most popular new devices is the elliptical trainer or cross-trainer. In addition, the recumbent bike is also gaining popularity.”
In May/June 2000, we looked at fitness trends. At that time the ACSM predicted that the 21st century would see new trends take hold, including adventure workouts (think rock climbing and mountain biking), fitness geared to health, virtual training, smart equipment, mind/body fitness programs like yoga and tai chi, sport-specific training, and “mini-workout centers,” with “workout centers or equipment” finding its way “into malls, laundromats and airports.”
Also in May/June 2000, we noted the addition of more creature comforts to fitness clubs, and highlighted clubs “moving to add two or more options in TV programming,” with systems to accommodate that demand. But by January 2005, we were writing about integrated LCD entertainment systems, providing “entertainment and simple navigation among program options and workout data through either touch screen or console controls.”
The following 20 years would see all of these trends and more continue to develop, with more options for fitness equipment, the rise of HIIT workouts, group exercise programs like Zumba and spinning becoming increasingly popular, suspension training and more. Smart phones and exercise trackers would change the way people tracked their activity and interacted with the equipment at the health club. And while the pandemic had a major negative impact on attendance at these facilities, it also helped facilitate the rise of virtual workouts and technology that allows the health club to follow you with motivation and fitness options even when you walk out the door.
Integration of Fitness & Health Care
From the obesity “epidemic” among people of all ages in the U.S. to the need to meet aging Americans’ desire for a more healthy lifestyle, our final trend involves the meeting point of fitness and health care.
In the May/June 2000 issue, we saw a brief mention of a trend for hospitals to build fitness centers, and the alarming rise of childhood obesity got its first headline in February 2005.
In 2007, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and the American Medical Association (AMA) teamed up to launch the Exercise is Medicine initiative. The vision of the initiative, which has since been coordinated by ACSM, is “…to make physical activity assessment and promotion a standard in clinical care, connecting health care with evidence-based physical activity resources for people everywhere of all abilities.”
As just one example, the Rx for Health series, created by Exercise is Medicine, provides guidelines on exercise for both sedentary people and for those with chronic diseases and conditions. Created by subject matter experts, the handouts are meant for health care providers and exercise professionals alike, and providers can print or scan the handout into the electronic health record to be added to a patient’s after-visit summary.
Looking Forward
This is far from an exhaustive list of everything that’s had a big impact on recreation, sports and fitness facilities over the past 25 years. Improved manufacturing capabilities and the innovations of suppliers to the industry have led to vast improvements in the kinds of products available to outfit pools, parks, fitness centers, rec centers, sports facilities and more. We aim to keep you abreast of these developments with continual coverage of the latest introductions and developments here.
Looking forward, how will the major trends—inclusion, sustainability, technology, demographics and more—continue to affect and change the way people interact with recreation, sports and fitness facilities? What new developments will alter the landscape? Stay tuned for our January 2025 issue, when we’ll take a look into the crystal ball, and check in with industry experts about what they consider the next big thing(s). RM
