Officials at Grand River Area Family YMCA at 1725 Locust Street have announced plans for expansion and renovation of its current facility and a $1 million capital campaign is underway to fund the plan. The project, which will begin in early April, will take the current two-story gymnastics center and change it into two, one-story spaces. A new meeting room and a youth exercise area is planned for the downstairs portion. In the upstairs, a virtual golf course, extensive cardiovascular machines and a bathroom will be added. The project also includes the construction of a new gymnastics center.

Photo / Butch Shaffer

The Grand River Area Family YMCA has announced plans for an expansion and renovation of its current facility at 1725 Locust Street. The YMCA will be conducting a $1 million capital campaign in the next few months to fund these plans. According to Dave Rogers, executive director, this project would take the current two-story gymnastics center and change it into two, one-story spaces. The upstairs portion would house extensive additional space for new cardiovascular machines, bathrooms and a virtual golf course.

The first floor of the renovated space would house a dedicated youth exercise area and a meeting room. A new, larger 70-by-80-foot gymnastics center would be built onto the southeast corner of the existing facility (utilizing two existing walls will save on construction costs). The new gymnastics center would be able to accommodate all of the apparatuses including the competition spring floor. The parking lot would also be expanded by another 24 spaces on the west end of the YMCA's south lawn.

In addition to money raised for expansion and new equipment, the campaign will provide $200,000 to the YMCA endowment fund. Earnings from the endowment will cover the additional utility and personnel costs of more space. “The exciting thing about the whole project is the new equipment we will have for the kids in the youth exercise area - it's going to be really special,” Rogers said, adding that the equipment upstairs for the adults will be well-received also.

Dedicating areas just for kids to exercise is a trend starting to catch on all around the country, Rogers said. He explained that the Grand River Area Family YMCA's version will include a sports wall with lights all over it. Rogers said that children will be able to aim various sports balls (like soft balls or soccer balls) at the lights in an effort to hit the lights, which are said to be indestructible. The children's scores will be shown on a scoreboard also installed on the wall. “There will also be a couple of bikes that kids can ride and have steering wheels and a big screen on the wall where they can race other kids on these bikes,” he said. Another game, Rogers said, will involve children wearing a safety belt and by moving, the children will be able to control a figurine of themselves on television.

“The idea is that this is fun stuff to do and interactive - kids can relate to it immediately,” Rogers said. He explained that exercising on a treadmill and lifting weights isn't what children ages 10 to 14 years old consider to be “fun.” "Kids just don't stick with it, but they will stick with these games," Rogers said.

The new gymnastics center being planned will be large enough to handle the competition floor, which up until now, has had to be placed in the Browning Gymnasium. "This (the new gymnastics center) will then free up half of the Browning Gymnasium which has been taken up with the competition floor half of the year when the floor is down," Rogers explained. He went on to say that the virtual golf course upstairs was included in the project to offer YMCA patrons "something new and completely different." Rogers said that it would be available to adults, but may also be used to teach children how to golf.

The cost of building the center in the southeast corner of the YMCA may be somewhat reduced, Rogers said, because two existing walls will be used. Fund-raising, Rogers says, has already started. While he declined to say just how much money has been raised for the project, he did say that commitments from local foundations and others are "right on track." "We've been quietly asking our friends and bigger donors for monies and they have responded generously," Rogers said. Most donations, he said, will be pledged over a three year period. If all goes well, Rogers says, construction will likely start in April with the building of the new gymnastics center. Then the old gymnastics center will be renovated. Rogers says he hopes the project will be completely finished by this fall.

The Grand River Area Family YMCA was chartered by the YMCA of the USA on Sept. 6, 1989. At that time it operated out of an office on Washington street across from the Strand Hotel building. In the fall of 1990, the YMCA embarked on a capital campaign to build the current facility located on the north end of Locust Street. By the summer of 1991, $3.1 million had been pledged to the campaign and construction was able to start late that fall. On Nov. 1, 1992 the doors opened to the new YMCA.

The Grand River YMCA opened a branch in Brookfield serving Linn County in 1997. In 1998, the YMCA launched a successful capital campaign to expand the original building to include another gymnasium, gymnastics center, babysitting area, weight room and activity center. In 2001, the YMCA went on a third capital campaign, this time in Linn County to raise money to build the current YMCA facility located on west Helm street.

Dr. David Neal has volunteered to be chairman of the committee charged with raising $1 million. Others serving on that committee are Bill Young, Ed Douglas, Robert Cowherd, Julie McCoy, Inger Young, Mike Turner and Rollie Stadlman.

In addition to running many youth sports programs, the YMCA provides over $50,000 annually in scholarship assistance to area children and adults to defray membership and/or program costs. The YMCA also runs a youth mentoring program called Y-PALS. And it coordinates the Backpack Buddies program which provides food for children during the school year who might be going hungry over the weekends.