Sun Devil Fitness Complex — Attraction in Tempe

Diclaimer: I personally only use the badminton facility at SDFC.

This is a great place if you want to use the Gym or if you want to play local sports. But the place is too crowded and is overwhelmed by the population that it is visited by. Clearly the SDFC is not capable of handling the student intake at ASU and is often under facilitated. International sports like badminton often take the hit and get closed down whenever there are any special events or intramurals, and there are a lot of them special events. This happens without any prior notice as well so you will go all the way there only to find out that you can't enjoy the facility that you paid for. Often times, more than half the people who wants to use some of the facilities have to wait hours for their turn.

The staff are generally part-time workers who are also students and clearly don't care about keeping their customers happy. Most of them do not show any interest in customer queries and are often rude. I personally have faced such rudeness when I am asking for even small things such as closing down curtains to avoid glare into the two-bay gym or having the nets properly set up. Some of the badminton courts (those in green and maroon gyms in particular) are not consistent in their dimensions. They seem to be arbitrarily painted without any standards.

I have known several of my friends, particularly those playing basketball and those who use the pool have been really satisfied with this facility and like I mentioned earlier, is good for those who wants to engage in activities that are popular locally. When it is either an exotic sport or even popular international sports don't believe the website when they say that they support the facility. For when they say they support it, it comes with a big 'if' clause.

Update: Its been over an year since that review and after numerous complaints, emails to managers and comment cards filled out, the place has become even worse. The staff have become particularly harsh and rude towards those who use the badminton facility. Several times in the last few weeks this semesters (Fall 2016), the facility was closed because, and I quote, "We lack manpower today to setup the courts" or "I'm sorry but today we can't setup the courts". The entire semester the courts were setup an hour late and taken down 45 minutes before the end time stated. The facility is falsely advertised on the website. Just for the sake of making a claim that this facility is open, they have setup one shabbily raised net which is often shared by about 50 patrons. After hours of repeated requests will come out additional courts which were supposed have been setup at the beginning of the stipulated time. I have given up on the idea that SDFC will ever care for their patrons. If only ASU had a policy where the facility's fee weren't mandatorily added to...

The fitness complex is awesome hands down, but as others have stated it is important to figure out the SDFC's quirks to really take advantage of it. I weight train, swim, take classes upstairs, and use the large Gold Gym for sports practice.

Early evening hours get packed so avoid stopping in between 4-7pm for a workout if you don't like the crowd. The place is very quiet in the morning and weekend and I generally have a great time.

Another reviewer was right about events often overriding smaller schedule activities, so you may walk in on exhibitions that are using your regular space (not to mention parking)--its a huge University and these things happen so I just do my best to work around them.

As for the staff, remember that most of them are also students and they are not there to baby you. Even so, I've never had a bad experience making requests to them. The whole place is kept clean and overall I'm grateful that the SDFC...

Front staff is awful , very inexperienced and don't know who a customer is, what they need, etc.

you cant get a pool lane for a least 30 minutes after getting there, while the opposite end of the pool is unused. Get another life guard, it is not that hard of a thought process to manage a pool.

there are too many tournament clogging the racket ball courts, so you can never get one to play.

too many basketball tournaments so there is never a place just to shoot baskets.

take one of the front desk clerks , train them as a lifeguard and open the other end of the pool.

offer some kind of classes in the evening so people can actually attend them.

make the place better, instead of the staff just standing around doing unproductive things.......give them an active role to help the clients.....not just robots that cannot answer a simple question.

it is a multiple million dollar facility, run it...