By Jason Pafundi
A rendering of the Central Lincoln County YMCA as it would appear after an approximately $8.4 million to $9.39 million addition, including a long-awaited swimming pool. |
For more than 30 years, residents of Central Lincoln County have wanted a community swimming pool. If things go according to plan in the next few years, they will get two.
The Central Lincoln County YMCA in Damariscotta unveiled a master design plan in front of more than 125 people at an event on Aug. 12. According to a timeline presented by CLC Y CEO Meagan Hamblett, the project will be completed in 2017.
Hamblett and Rod Grozier, president and CEO of Gro Development, which is heading the project, said that in order to stay sustainable, the CLC Y needs to be modernized.
“You need to have a Y that’s relevant,” Grozier said. “Nobody is required to join the Y, but they want to, and they have certain expectations in contemporary society.”
Grozier not only unveiled plans for two pools – a lap pool and mixed-use therapy pool – but also detailed ideas for upgrading the facility’s wellness center, upgrading the locker rooms, repositioning the walking track to a second level, completely updating the building’s façade and entryway, and adding a cafe, community kitchen, and children’s play area.
The project, Grozier said, should cost between $8.4 million and $9.39 million, though he cautioned that over time, based on changes to the plan, those numbers could change.
Hamblett expects the number to come in at the low end of this estimate, she said in an interview after the meeting. “The lower number is actually more realistic than the higher number is, but it’s going to fall somewhere in that range,” she said. The higher number is based on all-new construction, whereas the project is split between new construction and renovations.
During a question-and-answer session following Grozier’s presentation, members of the community took turns asking questions about things such as access to the tennis and pickleball courts, the new wellness center, which would include cardio machines, free weights, Nautilus machines, and personal-training space; and the presence of an elevator.
Hamblett said that when she became CEO last November after serving as a marketing director at the Boothbay Region YMCA for more than eight years, there was no real plan in place other than just wanting a pool. She said asking donors to commit big dollars without an actual plan does not work.
“When you fundraise, you have to start with a plan, but for the past 10 years, there wasn’t one,” Hamblett said.
The Y did have architectural plans for an addition prior to Hamblett’s arrival, although the plan “did not touch the rest of the YMCA” or address basic considerations like the necessity for air-handling units and gas lines.
“It wasn’t that they didn’t have a plan; they didn’t have an overall plan,” Hamblett said.
Though the cost of the project appeared to be the biggest concern for the majority of those in attendance, Hamblett said she wasn’t worried about raising the necessary funds.
“We have to cultivate our donors, and we have members who could be potential donors who aren’t,” Hamblett said. “We know people in the community who have connections, and we know foundations, etc. But we want the community to be bought into the plan.
“The fundraising doesn’t scare me and it doesn’t scare our board.”
The plan was called ambitious by some in the audience, and Hamblett and Grozier did not disagree. But they said while it might be ambitious, the community should expect these types of facilities in a modern-day YMCA.
“I think it is ambitious but definitely doable,” Hamblett said. “How can the hospital be raising its bar but then the Y, a community partner, is not doing its best to serve the community? It is only going to lift up the community.”
Despite the overwhelming support for the project from those in attendance, not everyone was 100 percent behind the plan.
One outspoken community member in particular, Daniel Goldenson, criticized the plan. Goldenson, a Bremen philanthropist, said he has made substantial contributions in the past to the pool project and thinks this plan would not add anything new to the facility.
“This is a wonderful plan, but not for our small town,” he said. “Everything you are adding we already have.”
Goldenson was bothered most by the fact that a small number of donors raised upward of $3 million in the last few years to build a swimming pool.
“To put that pool in the context of a $9 million project is being unrealistic about what you can expect the community to donate,” Goldenson said. “Unless you have some secret donors.”
The cost of the pool project has grown substantially since the announcement of a $1.2 million capital campaign in March 2011, at which time the Y hoped to start construction in the fall. In October 2011, the YMCA shifted its goal from a four-lane pool to a six-lane pool and increased the fundraising goal to $1.7 million.
A July 2014 article in The Lincoln County News reported a fundraising goal of $3.5 million to $3.6 million, which the Y appeared to have on hand. The Y had already raised $1.9 million, not including a just-announced bequest of approximately $2 million. In November 2014, the Y placed the new estimate for an aquatics center, now including a therapy pool, at $5,264,000-$5,564,000 and reported the “total available funds” at $3,495,800, not including pledges.
While the figures presented by Grozier and his associate, Stephanie Bandzak, are much higher, Grozier said just building an aquatics center with a four- or six-lane lap pool plus a therapy pool would cost more than $5 million.
“The notion of just wanting a pool isn’t lost on us,” he said. “But building two pool tanks without having some other components in the facility that are the economic engines that allow you to fund those things was a concern.”
Grozier’s firm has worked with YMCAs across the country and has completed more than 400 YMCA projects. He said that while his firm will be handling the big picture, much of the actual labor and construction work will come from the local community.
According to Hamblett, the next steps for the Y will be to resume “silent” fundraising, on hold since Hamblett’s arrival in November 2014; and to hire a local construction management firm, which will help the Y determine a more solid estimate for the project.
