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Council Hears About YMCA Plans

1 January 2002

 Dayton Daily News

BYLINE: Jim Babcock Dayton Daily News
DATE: 10-03-2002
PUBLICATION: Dayton Daily News
EDITION: NORTHEAST SECTION: Neighbors PAGE: Z5-1

Heights' recreation and wellness-medical center to be finished in about 18 months HUBER HEIGHTS - A site plan is completed and YMCA of Greater Dayton officials say that means Huber Heights is only about 18 months away from having its very own YMCA/Good Samaritan Hospital community recreation and wellness-medical center. An obviously pleased Huber Heights City Council learned that and more last week from a progress report delivered by Tim Helm, YMCA of Greater Dayton president and CEO, and Dale Brunner, director of Springboro's 2-year-old Coffman YMCA Center. "I'm very excited and confident that the YMCA that is going to be located here will be a first-class opportunity for us," said Councilwoman Karen Kaleps, a longtime supporter of expanding recreational opportunities in Huber Heights. Helm (who became YMCA president and CEO in February) began the presentation with a reminder that the effort to bring a YMCA center to Huber Heights began 18 months ago as a result of conversations between City Manager James Pierce and then-YMCA president and CEO Mike Parks. Pierce, who had returned as Huber Heights city manager in February 2001 after a six-year stint as city administrator of Davenport, Iowa, initiated the conversations after learning about collaborative efforts that brought the new Coffman YMCA center to Springboro and a then-under-construction Kleptz Family YMCA center to Englewood. The Coffman center was built on donated land in collaboration with Springboro and Miami Valley Hospital; the Kleptz center was being built on donated land in collaboration with Englewood, Kettering Medical Center and the Living Water Full Gospel Baptist Church; and Pierce was seeking something similar for Huber Heights. Exploration of the possibilities for Huber Heights involved a consulting assist from former Five Rivers MetroParks director Marvin Olinsky - now temporary Huber Heights parks and recreation manager - and evolved into a collaboration with Huber Heights, Good Samaritan Hospital and the Sulphur Grove United Methodist Church. "At their church, Sulphur Grove has two conventional services every Sunday, and what they will do each Sunday at our facility is hold a contemporary service to attract people who don't ordinarily attend church," Helm said in a later interview. "It's pretty much the same thing that the Living Water church is doing at the Englewood center." Helm also said the Heights center will be most like the Englewood center in size, appearance and facilities provided. "And based on what we opened in Englewood in February, the projected cost for the Huber Heights facility would be $7.3 million for everything - construction, equipment, marketing costs and so forth," he said. The Huber facility also will be constructed on donated land - a 16.7-acre site at the northwest corner of Brandt Pike and Shull Road. The land is being donated to the city by Paul E. and James B. Grusenmeyer as a result of a lawsuit settlement that also provided for development of a two-phase, upscale apartment complex that will occupy 41.3 acres divided by a 6.5-acre, city-owned wetland corridor. It will be buffered from a neighboring single-family residential area by a 3-acre, 200-foot-wide public grounds area that will tie into a city park and a 700-acre residential golf course to the north. The settlement involved a lawsuit in which the Grusenmeyers and the apartment developers - Anderson Resource Inc. and Trebein Limited ADK III - had accused the city of violating their constitutional due process and equal-protection rights through an unlawful denial of a zoning change that would have allowed development of a 70.7-acre apartment complex. The site plan for the new YMCA/Good Samaritan center calls for the west side of the center's ground to link with the public ground buffer area and to include walking trails and playing fields for soccer and basketball. The center itself will include a 20,000-square-foot wellness- medical center wing and a 42,000-square-foot recreation center wing, both of which will face onto a 280-space parking lot that will be entered from Brandt Pike. Brunner, who detailed the site plan for City Council, said the recreation center's inside facilities will include a foyer and front desk area, a 6,000-square-foot fitness center; a 1,000- to 1,200- square-foot nursery service room; a 900-square-foot multipurpose room with a family center and playland area for children; a 25- yard, six-lane lap pool; a 18- by 25-foot therapeutic pool; and a 2,200-square-foot "regular size" gymnasium with a one-sixteenth of a mile running track circling above it. "Then, in back, will be the game fields that will connect with the other parcels," Brunner said. Helm said the new recreation center is expected to serve somewhere between the 2,800 families who are now members of the Englewood center and the 4,400 families who are members of the Springboro center. He also said the project is at a stage where the YMCA is beginning a financial feasibility study to identify community and business leaders willing to participate and contribute to a capital campaign. "That will take the next 30 to 45 days, then we'll come back to the council and then launch our capital campaign," Helm said. "If all goes well, we should be ready to begin construction in the spring, and construction of these facilities takes about a year. So you should have your new center in the spring of 2004."