Career Tech CentersSouthwest OhioCincinnati

Great Oaks Exercise Lab Renovation 2025

The Exercise Science program at Laurel Oaks Career Campus in Wilmington has a renovated classroom and lab suite and a new outdoor exercise area. Inside: new storefront glazing, a black rubber lab floor, epoxy in the wet and locker areas, 50 locker openings, new in-floor plumbing, and sprinkler and fire alarm updates. Outside: an 1,800-square-foot concrete slab, synthetic turf, a basketball hoop and 200 feet of black steel fence with a gate. Prodigy built it for Great Oaks under a pre-bid TOP-C cooperative contract.

The Exercise Science program at Laurel Oaks Career Campus in Wilmington was teaching in a suite that still carried the plumbing of what the space used to be: a tile shower and pan, a tub in the restroom, a mop sink, three stainless sinks and a wall of lockers, none of it arranged for a lab where students take measurements on each other and on equipment.

Great Oaks renovated the classroom and lab suite and built an outdoor exercise area alongside it, on a pre-bid TOP-C unit price contract. Inside, demolition took out casework, ceiling pads, carpet and VCT, the lockers and the wet fixtures. Two masonry openings were shored and cut for new anodized aluminum storefront systems with insulated glazing, carried on steel lintels and finished with new block. The slab was cut and replaced for in-floor plumbing serving two sinks, a washer and a drinking fountain with bottle filler. The floor is now epoxy in the wet area, restroom, changing, locker and storage spaces, carpet in the classroom, and half-inch black rubber in the lab. Twenty-five double-tier vented lockers give the program 50 openings. Sprinkler heads were respaced to the new wall layout and the fire alarm pull stations and strobes updated to match it.

Outside, an 1,800-square-foot concrete slab and 675 square feet of synthetic turf sit behind a 65-foot concrete curb, with an adjustable-height basketball hoop on a 72-inch polycarbonate backboard, 200 feet of six-foot black steel fence, and a single gate with an automatic closer and a panic bar. The slab is sloped about one percent away from the building, and the disturbed ground was regraded and hydroseeded.

Stability ball rack and cardio equipment in the Great Oaks fitness lab

Lab casework with sinks and an anatomical model at Great Oaks

Classroom seating and whiteboard in the Great Oaks exercise science suite

Treadmills and strength machines on the Great Oaks fitness floor

Exercise science classroom lab with treatment table and skeleton model at Great Oaks

Racks and benches beside the glass wall in the Great Oaks lab

Squat racks and plate trees along the Great Oaks fitness wall

Wide view of the Great Oaks exercise science fitness floor

Machines, racks and plyo boxes on the Great Oaks fitness floor

Stability balls, mats and plyo boxes stored beside the lab casework

Corridor lockers outside the Great Oaks exercise science lab

Technical Discussion

An exercise lab that continues outdoors

The straightforward way to buy this is a renovated lab and, separately, a pad out back. The decision here was to design the two as one teaching environment, and the parts that make it work are a pair of storefront openings, a fenced enclosure and a slab built to a heavier specification than a patio.

Section of the Laurel Oaks outdoor exercise area: a 4-inch, 4,000 psi fiber-reinforced concrete slab of 1,800 square feet on 4 inches of compacted stone, sloped 1 percent away from the building, a 12-by-6-inch curb, and 675 square feet of synthetic turf on a stone blend. — Figure 1 — The slab drains away from the wall so the renovated floors inside stay dry.

Sightlines

Two new anodized aluminum storefront systems with insulated glazing were cut into the masonry wall, each with a steel lintel over the opening and new block dressed around it. That is the most expensive architectural move in the scope, and what it buys is a line of sight from inside the lab to the outdoor area. One instructor can supervise both, so a class can move through the glass without regrouping.

The slab

The outdoor pad is 1,800 square feet of concrete at least 4 inches thick, on at least 4 inches of compacted #304 stone, sloped about 1 percent away from the building, which is an eighth of an inch per foot. The concrete is a 4,000 psi mix with a fiber additive and a cure-and-seal application, where ordinary exterior flatwork is often poured at 3,000 psi. The higher strength and the fiber resist the surface scaling and edge cracking that come from freeze-thaw and dropped equipment, and the slope keeps water off the wall that the renovated interior floors sit behind. A 65-foot curb, 12 inches tall and 6 inches wide, separates the slab from 675 square feet of synthetic turf laid on a 4-inch #304 and #57 stone blend.

The enclosure

Two hundred feet of 6-foot powder-coated steel fence with a single 42-inch gate closes the area. The gate carries an automatic closer and a panic bar, so it is latched by default and can always be opened from inside without a key. Without that, an outdoor lab is a supervision problem and gets used twice a year.

Inside

The lab floor is half-inch rubber, and the wet area, restroom and locker spaces are epoxy over a slab cut and repaired for new plumbing to two sinks, a washer and a bottle-filling fountain. Twenty-five double-tier lockers give the program 50 openings.

When you plan a lab with an outdoor component, specify the slab like a loading area, not a sidewalk. The extra strength costs a little in concrete and saves the floor inside.

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