The works will provide two aerobic rooms, an area for spinning classes, a room for yoga and Pilates and an improved and larger gym with new equipment. The swimming pool will remain untouched.
Club CEO Peter Jackson said the work would also see the top half of the unsightly and unused grandstand removed and remodeled into offices, storage space and possibly a medical room.
Jackson said it could also be a new home for the Essendon District Football League administration and that the Bombers had approached the EDFL late last year about moving to the facility and hosting the match of the round at Windy Hill.
If this move came about, the club would also install new changerooms.
Jackson said facilities would also be improved for Essendon Cricket Club.
The works would match the style and colour scheme of the club’s recently renovated administration building.
The club would also provide 110 parking spaces for its players and centre members.
It would demolish the terraced stands and kiosk on the Brewster Street side of the oval to make way for further parking spaces for the footballers who use the 83-space car park in Napier Street.
That car park plus another new on-site area, yet to be revealed, would be available to the centre members. More parking for the centre members would be provided on site, however Jackson would not reveal its exact location.
The club hopes to complete the works before November once council planning approval is obtained. ""This work needs to be done this year,"" he said.
Essendon Football Club appointed Belgravia Leisure to manage the centre when RANS Management Group went into receivership in July 2002 and has since enjoyed a jump in membership from 1800 to 2400.
It is hoped revamping the centre would push membership up to 3000 and transform Windy Hill into the area’s premier fitness club.
ESSENDON has spent more than $8 million in the past seven years rejuvenating the ground’s facilities, including a soon-to-be-completed $350,000 oval renovation with new drainage.
Jackson said the oval had suffered from 20 years of inadequate maintenance and the club had taken action to prevent more expensive works in the future. He said the players would start training on the oval in about six weeks but no games would be played until later in the year, possibly in time for the EDFL finals. A VFL game has been schedule there in August.
