Saturday, February 23, 2008

Y' gets $175,000 from 1st Federal



Dan Akeley, center, shows Steve Zahn and Michael Zahn some of the construction at the new Parkview Huntington Family YMCA Tuesday morning. Steve Zahn is chairman of the board and chief executive officer and Michael Zahn is the president of First Federal Savings Bank; the bank donated $175,0000 to the “Y” for the new building. (Herald-Press/Matthew Berry)

By Herald-Press staff report 2/21/08

A basketball court at the new Parkview Huntington Family YMCA will be known as First Federal Court, thanks to a gift from First Federal Savings Bank and the families of bank officials Steve Zahn and Michael Zahn.

Michael Zahn announced the $175,000 pledge Tuesday morning during a visit to the site of the new YMCA building, where the gym walls are now going up. The gift will be used to help pay for gymnasium portion of the new building, YMCA Executive Director Dan Akeley said.

Steve Zahn is chairman of the board and chief executive officer of First Federal, and Michael Zahn is the president of the Huntington-based bank. Michael Zahn is also chairman of the YMCA's board of directors, and Steve Zahn is chairing the Y's capital campaign. The Zahns say they believe the YMCA is a vital asset to the community. “The Y has played an important role in this community for over 75 years and we feel that it will continue to prosper in its new location,” Michael Zahn said. “We feel honored to be a part of Huntington and have the opportunity to give back to this community.”

The new YMCA is being built in front of Parkview Huntington Hospital on CR 500N and will replace a 75-year-old facility on Warren Street. No plans for the future of the current facility have been announced. If construction stays on schedule, Akeley said, the new YMCA will open in November. The gymnasium in the new facility will include two side courts, each approximately the size of the current YMCA gym, and a larger main court that will be about the size of a high school court. The gym will have a wooden floor and will also feature a batting cage and a suspended indoor track.

Programs to be held in the new gymnasium include youth and adult basketball, soccer, youth and adult volleyball, gymnastics, tournaments, and special events, with additional programs still being developed. The YMCA has raised $7.5 million toward construction costs, with a goal of raising a total of $9.1 million. Additional pledges are still being accepted. To make a pledge, call the YMCA at 356-4200 or stop by the current facility at 607 Warren St.
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Monday, February 11, 2008

Dan Akely Reports Y scheduled to open in November



We are looking at opening the new 54,000 sf facility in November. We do have some events coming up in late March and April. Look for announcements concerning the "Steel Topping Out" ceremony and the Hard Hat Tours soon.

To date we have raised $7.5 million. With the project cost being $9.1
million, we still have some fundraising work to do. Let me know if you
have any questions. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Thanks,
Dan Akeley
2/11/08
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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



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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.