Washington YMCA breaks ground on new indoor pool

WASHINGTON — Community members gathered at the Washington YMCA Tuesday morning to turn over the first shovels full of dirt on an indoor pool project years in the making.

As the current indoor pool inches toward a century of use, Y representatives at the ceremony said they were excited to have the new facility finally underway.

“I’m at a loss for words, actually, it feels like a new beginning,” Washington County Y CEO Amy Schulte said. “I’m feeling very emotional about it … The millions of dollars that have come from individuals in this community, that’s just a huge thing, to have that kind of support … it does feel like the last piece finally falling into place, and we can really be a whole Y.“

Supporters said the new facility would be a boon to the community, with a full suite of features like a six-lane pool, a smaller recreational pool, saunas and expanded spectator seating.

YMCA Swim Team Assistant Coach Terra Huber said the new facility would not only offer more lanes than the current one, but scale them up to the standard competition length of 25 meters. The four lanes at the current indoor pool are only 20 meters, according to the Y.

“This will also allow us to be able to host swim meets … which creates opportunities for our community members to see our swimmers show off all of their hard work,” Huber said. “But most importantly, this new aquatic center will allow us to continue to focus on what it means to be part of the swim team … and encourage them to support one another at a swim meet. We encourage goal-setting and personal growth. We encourage confidence and we encourage perseverance.”

Others said the facility represented a symbol of collaboration.

“Washington is a growing community, we invest in our businesses, we invest in our families, we invest in people,” Washington Chamber of Commerce Director Michelle Redlinger said to the gathered crowd of organization members, staff and donors. “We all know that you have a heart for the Y, it’s a very special place for all of us.”

The start of construction marks the result of years of fundraising, replanning and grant-writing as the goal post shifted from $5.5 million to $8.2 million as supply shortages grew common and construction grew expensive.

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“The decision was made in 2013 to build a new facility, and the estimate back then was only $11 million for both buildings,” Project Fundraising Chair Ed Weeks said. “There were naysayers, people said, ‘You’re not going to do this, how the hell are you going to raise all this money? That’s a lot of money.’ Myself and a few other people on the campaign team, we didn’t take that attitude.”

As of today, the Y has raised around $7.4 million for the indoor pool, according to Weeks. That leaves $800,000 to go.

Schulte said the Y hoped to gather that primarily through community member donations, with the grand majority of grant opportunities already exhausted. While organization leadership has previously signaled that a loan could cover the difference, the nonprofit typically tries to avoid such sources of debt.

“When we broke ground on the original building here, we also had that much of a gap to fill, and we continued to fundraise,” she said. “We were successful in bringing in that last check the first week that we opened the facility … we’ll continue to look at all of the opportunities that are available to us. Most of the bigger grants we’ve already applied for, there’s some smaller ones that we’ll still seek.”

Construction is set to run through early fall of 2024, according to Carl A. Nelson & Company Project Manager Tad Morrow, who said it the process would involve crane work on top of more typical building equipment.

“It’s a pretty good-sized project, and we’ve got history with it, history with the Y, history with Amy and the whole bunch,” he said.

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