The City Council is staring down a June 30 deadline to decide whether Charlottesville wants a $14 million YMCA in the city. The Piedmont Family YMCA’s proposal to build a new facility at McIntire Park hinges on getting a ground lease by September 30. It already has a site approved on the Piedmont Virginia Community College campus, but Kurt Krueger, Piedmont YMCA Board of Directors president, says that a city site is the “ideal way to serve the less fortunate.”
City Councilor Dave Norris calls the YMCA’s proposal a “no-brainer.” While the city faces much-needed and expensive repairs to its two indoor pools (Crow and Smith, both 32 years old), the proposed YMCA would include two indoor pools, along with other facilities. If the proposal is approved, the city would lose land in McIntire Park as well as spend $2-4 million for the YMCA facility. In contrast, renovations of the indoor pools would run $9-14 million.
 Last fiscal year, the city spent $280,000 on Smith Pool. Now Council has to decide whether or not to approve a Piedmont Family YMCA proposal to build a new facility in Charlottesville. The new YMCA would include two indoor pools. |
But the YMCA has stepped into a thorny city issue: what to do with the park system. City Councilor Kevin Lynch says he sees a new YMCA facility as a consolidation of the Parks & Recreation Department, something Council doesn’t want to do. He argues a new YMCA facility will divert attention (and dollars) from programming the city sorely needs.
“We’ve got neighborhood centers open just 20 hours a week,” Lynch says. “That’s embarrassing.” Improving neighborhood centers, he says, should be the city’s priority.
Norris agrees but argues a YMCA would free up money to do precisely that. Instead of sinking money into two indoor pools, the city could concentrate on other facilities and programs. “The money that we’ll save with the Y we can use to beef up our neighborhood Parks and Rec programs,” he says.
Mike Svetz, Parks and Recreation director, says of the proposal: “It’s a good partnership that provides additional recreation opportunities that meet community needs that, on our own, we don’t have the financial resources to provide.”
Lynch says what he’s seen so far hasn’t convinced him development will help programming. “They don’t have to be mutually exclusive,” he says. “But in my experience that has been the case.”
The debate is also about accessibility: How does the city best serve all residents, especially those without vehicles? Lynch objects to the McIntire site’s lack of access to public transportation. Although the site, adjacent to the park’s softball fields, is within walking distance of Charlottesville High School, it doesn’t have a bus stop. “A McIntire Park solution is a more suburban solution,” he says, “chiefly available to those with cars.”
Norris points out that the Y is willing to run a bus that picks up kids from their neighborhoods. As for public transportation? “That’s easy to address,” says Norris. “Adding or changing a bus route, in the grand scheme of things…that’s small.” With the addition of bike and walking trails, McIntire Park will be “much more accessible” in four or five years, says Svetz. Accessibility will also improve if the Meadowcreek Parkway is built—the YMCA site is next to the proposed alignment for the road.
Lynch remains unconvinced. “To a kid without a car,” he says, “PVCC and McIntire are almost equivalent.”
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