Thursday, March 8, 2007

We are getting an 8 Laner

University will close its swimming facility, help fund YMCA

By BETH KNOLL, Staff Writer, The Huntington Herald Press, 3/8/06

The new warm-water pool at the planned Parkview Huntington Family YMCA will be known as the Forester Pool, thanks to a quarter-million-dollar donation from Huntington University.

The university announced its $250,000 pledge to the YMCA on Monday afternoon in President G. Blair Dowden's office. The money will be given over a six-year period, and Dowden said that HU's current pool, which dates to the early 1970s, will close when the new Y opens in the summer of 2008. The HU pool is located in the Merillat Complex for Physical Education and Recreation.

Tom Ayers, vice president for business and finance, said Huntington University spends $60,000 each year to operate its pool, which includes the cost of supplies, chemicals, utilities, and labor costs for routine operations and for lifeguards. Upcoming repairs could cost an additional $217,000 and include cleaning and repainting support beams, replacing or repairing the pool deck, replacing the filter system, upgrading temperature controls, and replacing the air handler unit in the pool area.

“Ignoring for a moment rising utility rates, likely increases in wage rates for lifeguards, and the general impact of inflation on other costs, the university would spend more than $800,000 on the pool over the next 10 years,” Ayers said.

The university's donation will help the Y increase the size of its competition pool from six to eight lanes and increase the size of the warm-water recreational and therapy pool, which will bear the name of the university's athletic teams.

“The larger pools will be able to handle all the additional programming needs that the university currently conducts in (its) existing pool as well as the YMCA's needs,” said Dan Akeley, executive director of the YMCA.


For 10 years after the new YMCA opens its pool facilities, students and employees of the university, guests staying at HU for summer conferences, and participants in the university's aquatics classes can swim at the Y for free.

Also, Huntington University will give a discount to YMCA members for use of MCPER facilities, and the YMCA will give a discount to MCPER members to use the Y. The discounts have not yet been set and will be determined on a yearly basis.

Akeley said the family membership rate at the YMCA will be raised from $35 monthly to between $40 and $42 monthly after the new facilities open, and other rates will be raised accordingly.

The MCPER pool will be filled in and its space will be used for other athletic needs when the entire facility is due for remodeling.

“We think it's a good stewardship issue for us,” Dowden said. “The pool is not well-used by our students,” which is typical of university pools these days, he added.

The pool is mainly used for occasional aquatics classes, open swim times, and senior citizen swimming on weekday mornings. Seniors will need a YMCA membership to swim in the Y pool. The YMCA will employ its own lifeguards, and HU students now serving as lifeguards can apply to work at the Y, Akeley added.

Construction of the new YMCA is expected to begin in April or May and should be completed by the summer of 2008. The YMCA will be located adjacent to the university's campus on the grounds of Parkview Huntington Hospital.

Dowden said the university began pool talks with the YMCA 1 1/2 years ago.

The YMCA has acquired $6 million in gifts and pledges toward an overall capital campaign goal of $8 million.

The Y has also asked other organizations, including the Huntington County Community School Corporation, for commitments of pool use. HCCSC Superintendent Tracey Shafer said he and members of the HCCSC board of trustees are still waiting on proposed lease figures from the Y board before making any decisions in the matter.



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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Just got a note from Director Dan that the pool fund has approximately $290,000 in it!!

March 27, 2007 at 10:52 AM

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Welcome

Hello fellow Hummer alumni. We each have memories of the huge influence Glen S. Hummer had on us all. The Huntington YMCA is still conducting a continuing funding campaign for the marvelous new facility which replaces the one we all swam in and more since the team began in 1933. This space is for us to meet and/or meet up again. There were 250 at the reunion on June 16, 2007, coinciding with the newly reestablished Huntington Mile at ole Lake Clare in which many of us swam again. All are invited and welcomed to submit reminiscences here (click on "comments" in the section below.) See some of you, again we hope, at the 2010 Glen S. Hummer Huntington Masters Mile. And visit us on facebook too at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#%21/group.php?gid=100802262318&ref=ts



.....

Huntington YMCA Building Program

Note: To donate to the fund-raising campaign for the new YMCA (and its Hummer Pool) contact:

Dan Akeley, Executive Director, Huntington YMCA, 607 Warren St., Huntington, IN 46750, 260-356-4200, ymcadan@kconline.com

From The Herald Press12/18/06

Goal: $8 million; In hand: $5.4 million; Yet to raise: $2.6 million

It will take $8 million to build a new YMCA, and that's the amount the Y's fund-raising committee has set as its goal. With the $2 million gift from Parkview Huntington Hospital - seven acres of land worth $450,000 and a pledge of $1.55 million in cash from the hospital's Community Benefit dollars - the capital campaign committee now has $5.4 million in hand, said Dan Akeley, the YMCA's executive director.

That $5.4 million, which includes pledges that will be paid over the next five years, came in as the result of a campaign that began in May as YMCA volunteers contacted potential major donors, Akeley said. That leaves the YMCA with $2.6 million yet to raise. Some of that will come from additional major donors, Akeley said, but the Y hopes to raise $250,000 from people throughout Huntington County who are everyday users (or former users) of the facility. An effort to reach those people will begin in late January and continue until June, Akeley said. YMCA volunteers will begin with personal contacts and later use phone calls and letters to solicit donations.

From The Herald Press, 12/18/06

The inside story: Nearly double the usable space

By CINDY KLEPPER, City Editor

The new Parkview Huntington YMCA will encompass about 52,000 square feet, all on one floor, with two pools, two basketball floors, and an elevated walking track. By comparison, the current facility has about 30,000 square feet of usable space on three levels, one pool, one basketball court, and no dedicated place to walk - although it does have numerous nooks and crannies that may have had a function when the Warren street building opened in 1930, but now serve no useful purpose.

The new building was designed by Moake Park Group, a Fort Wayne-based architectural firm whose work can be seen in the Parkview Huntington Hospital building as well as the Jorgensen Family YMCA in Allen County. Moake Park's design for the Huntington YMCA was intended for a 14-acre site north of Huntington that the YMCA board originally planned to purchase, said Dan Akeley, the Y's executive director. The building and parking areas would have occupied only seven acres of that site, Akeley said, and can be moved to the Parkview site practically unchanged. "The floor plans will basically be the same," Akeley said. "It worked for both sites." The remainder of the original 14-acre site would have held a soccer field, two retention ponds, and a fitness trail. At the new site, retention ponds are already in place outside the YMCA's seven acres. Although there's no room for a soccer field, there's a possibility of additional property being made available for soccer sometime in the future. In addition to surveying members about what they wanted in a new facility, YMCA board members checked out features of other recently built YMCAs.

"We learned a lesson from the Jorgensen YMCA," Akeley said. "They have one pool, and if someone has an accident in the pool, they have to shut down the whole thing." The Huntington Y board decided to go with two pools, side by side. "If somebody has an accident, we can just shut the one pool down," Akeley said. The smaller pool will have a "zero," or sloped, entry making it accessible to people in wheelchairs and others with limited mobility. It's water will be warm enough to be comfortable for swimming and aerobics classes. The second pool will be large enough to be used by swim teams and can also be used to host meets. The gym's two basketball courts can be separated by a curtain. A fitness center will include both free weights and cardio equipment, and an adjacent aerobics/dance area will feature floating floors. A walking track, one-tenth of a mile long, will be suspended around the perimeter of the gym, fitness center, and aerobics/dance area. An expanded child watch area will be located next to two preschool rooms.