New fitness center, storage building open on San Nicolas Island

A new fitness center and a heavy equipment storage building opened aboard Naval Base Ventura County (NBVC) San Nicolas Island following two, separate ribbon-cutting ceremonies Dec. 3.

The fitness center will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week to the more than 150 military and civilian personnel assigned to NBVC San Nicolas Island.

The heavy equipment storage building was designed to house large pieces of equipment used by the NBVC Public Works Department branch. It was constructed in one year by Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 74, NMCB 4 and NMCB 1. Its purpose is to store the equipment indoors away from the harsh, corrosive atmosphere present at the island.

"Today is a clear representation of what a Seabee det. out here can do for us. I'm thrilled to see that the efforts here have started to pay off," said Rear Adm. Len Hering, commander of Navy Region Southwest, prior to the ribbon-cutting for the storage building.

The building is ready for immediate use.

"It's going to be used to store bulldozers, water trucks; all the heavy equipment that would normally sit outside and be exposed to the salt air," said Chief Builder John Rearich (SCW). "We're trying to save some of the equipment. Logistically, it's hard to replace, coming out here to the island; so anything you can do to help keep the salt air off helps a lot."

Rearich said the efforts of the Seabees helped cut down on the cost of the project.

"It had a total cost of $350 thousand, and we saved them $150 thousand just by little ideas and tricks that Seabees do to reutilize materials. And then by talking to the engineers saying, 'Do you really need this? Do you want this?' we were able to chop off quite a bit of the cost," Rearich said.

The new fitness center offers 6,000 square feet of usable exercise space, with more than 30 pieces of cardio and weight training equipment; an aquatic facility including an indoor pool, hot tub and sauna; and a rock climbing wall. The cost of the facility was $1.7 million.

"I think it was about two years ago when Rear Adm. Hering came out here and saw the facilities, and to say that he was unhappy would be an understatement," said Kent Blankenship, NBVC athletic branch manager. "He wanted the quality of life for his Sailors to go up tenfold.

"We were able to put the fitness center above a lot of other MWR region-wide projects. It became a priority for the admiral to get the fitness center taken care of."

Blankenship added he hopes the quality of life for the Sailors does improve with the addition of the fitness center. He also said the equipment in the fitness center will enable the Sailors to do their PRT indoors using the ellipticals or treadmills if they can't test outside.

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