New branch, classrooms, gym. Here’s what’s in store for Columbus YMCA facilities
The YMCA of Metropolitan Columbus plans to not only raise money to build a $10-12 million branch in midtown, but also spend an estimated $3 million to expand and renovate the D.A. Turner branch in north Columbus.
“We plan to move forward with the projects and hope that there will be support, continued support, of the YMCA in this community,” local YMCA president and CEO Mario Davis told the Ledger-Enquirer.
The YMCA of Metropolitan Columbus was established 163 years ago, making it the third-oldest YMCA chapter in the United States. With an operating budget of more than $4 million and around 15,000 members, the Y’s three Columbus locations totaled approximately 85,000 visits in 2018, Davis said.
“We hope the community will support this capital campaign once we tell the story and why the need is clear,” Davis said.
Simply put, with the Turner branch in north Columbus and the John P. Thayer branch in downtown, the midtown and southern parts of the city don’t have a full-service YMCA. And the popularity of programs at the Turner YMCA created the need to renovate and expand that branch, Davis said.
Groundbreaking for the Turner YMCA’s first phase of projects is scheduled for Dec. 5. Programs and access to the facility will continue as normal during the construction, said Jillian Albe, branch executive director.
“We will add on before we actually move anything out and adjust,” she said.
Phase I is expected to take 8-10 months and will include the addition of a second gym and two new classrooms, plus renovation of the lobby.
Phase II will be done during the succeeding 4-6 months and will include renovation of the current gym, the pool’s locker rooms and unspecified smaller projects, Davis said.
All the projects at the Turner branch should be done by the end of 2021, he said.
New branch in midtown
The A.J. McClung branch, at 1175 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., is just 6,000 square feet, so the 54-year-old facility has room for only the youth and teen center.
Its programs include after-school enrichment services, Y Achievers leadership development, day camps and youth sports (basketball, soccer, T-ball, martial arts and boxing).
The YMCA wants to build a full-service branch as large as 30,000 square feet, Davis said. It would be called the A.J. McClung YMCA at Midtown, envisioned to open in 2022.
The new branch would be built on the site of the former Rigdon Road Elementary School, 1282 Rigdon Road, if the Muscogee County School Board approves the pending sale of the property for $460,000. That site comprises 5.31 acres, including the Ardahlia Mack Community Center.
The Mack Center would be torn down, Davis said, but a room in the new McClung branch would be named in the late community activist’s honor and dedicated to the same use as the community center.
“We don’t want to do anything that would anger the residents in the community,” he said. “… So those residents who have access to the building now, whether it’s a bridal shower or a birthday party or a meeting of an association, will continue to have access for those purposes.”
Residents wouldn’t need to be a YMCA member to use the community room, Davis said. Asked whether there would be a rental fee, he said, “We haven’t yet thought through those details.”
Unlike the two other full-service YMCA locations in Columbus, the new McClung branch wouldn’t have a pool. That’s because, Davis said, it makes financial sense to partner with the Columbus Consolidated Government to allow YMCA members to use the Columbus Aquatic Center, a half mile from the site.
“We’ve decided to move away from this model where we did everything on our own,” Davis said. “We really look for partners now to help advance our mission, strategic partners. … Because this location is so close to the Aquatic Center, which has struggled financially, this presents an opportunity that is a win-win-win for the YMCA, the city and that community.”
The YMCA has proposed, Davis said, to lease 4-6 lanes from the city’s 22-lane pool in the Aquatic Center.
“We would buy our own chemicals proportionate to the number of lanes that we rent,” he said. “We would staff those lanes so that would not be a requirement of the city in terms of lifeguards, and we’d pay an annual rental fee or maintenance fee to the city.”
Holli Browder, director of the Columbus Parks and Recreation Department, confirmed in an email to the L-E that city and YMCA officials have discussed this proposal, “but we have not worked out any details.”
Davis emphasized that, after the new McClung branch is built, the YMCA will continue to operate the current facility in some capacity through services yet to be determined.
“We will not abandon that community,” he said.
Janet Bussey, a retired social worker, has been a YMCA member for two years and drives to the Turner branch. As a resident of the Lindsey Creek neighborhood, she would live two blocks from the new McClung branch, a better option for her exercise routine of five days per week.
“To have a place that’s within walking distance for me just would be a godsend,” Bussey, 69, told the L-E.
It also would benefit other residents of Lindsey Creek and the East Wynnton and Boxwood neighborhoods, she said, as well as those who rely on bus transportation because there is a nearby Metra stop.
“We don’t have any outlets for recreation, exercise and senior programs in our neighborhood, in our greater neighborhood,” she said. “… Our youth don’t have anywhere to go where they can have structured activities to develop a sense of maintaining their health and getting along with other people and a safe place for them for before- and after-school care.”
Changes at Turner Y
The 30,000-square-foot Turner YMCA has been updated several times since it was built in the late 1970s at 4384 Warm Springs Road. This renovation and expansion will add:
- Two new classrooms, both covering 1,100 square feet, where the patio is now.
- A new gym, at the rear of the property, will be 6,000 square feet.
Renovation of the current gym will produce two basketball courts in that space.
Those additions will allow the Turner branch to increase its before-school and after-school programs from 200 children to 300, Davis said.
“We’re turning away kids and families because we don’t have the room,” he said.
Combined with the new gym, the Turner branch will go from having one basketball court to three.
“Today, if you come out on a Saturday morning during basketball season, we have to start games at 8 o’clock in the morning,” Davis said. “They run until 6 or 7 o’clock. … Now, we’ll get more games in, we’ll have more programmable space and childcare services.”
Adam Denson is among the parents who will benefit from the changes at the Turner branch.
Denson, 41, has been a YMCA member for around 13 years. He had his wife, Kea, have exercised there while their oldest son, 12-year-old Zachary, plays basketball several times per week.
They will do the same routine when their youngest son, 9-year-old, joins his brother in the program this year.
Increasing the number of basketball courts at the Turner branch from one to three, Denson told the L-E, will “allow a much more efficient game schedule. … That’s going to free up time for us.”
Denson, a supervisor at Aflac, also likes the idea of having two additional classrooms at the Turner branch, where his sons attend summer camps.
“There were a lot of kids in there at one time,” he said. “They controlled it with a very good, structured program, but they’ve always needed more space.”
It’s a busy and hopeful time for Davis and the local YMCA’s other leaders as they administer these projects.
“We’ve got a lot of balls in the air,” he said, “But the Bible says, ‘To whom much is given, much is required.’ And we’ve got a great board of directors who support the expansion and renovation, a great membership-base as well, and a great base of kids and families that we serve every single day at all of our facilities, and we feel like the timing is right.”
This story was originally published November 14, 2019 at 10:23 AM.
