Currituck YMCA to cost $12M, open in 2011

Agreement grants YMCA 30-year lease

By Toby Tate
Staff Writer

Thursday, November 05, 2009
CURRITUCK — 

A proposed YMCA in the Maple area will cost the county $12 million and open no later than December 2011, if not sooner, Currituck County officials said Monday.

Currituck officials formally approved an agreement with YMCA of South Hampton Roads on Monday that has the county building a joint YMCA-county recreation facility and the YMCA leasing the facility for 30 years.

Under the deal, Currituck will provide funding for and own the 50,000-square-foot facility while YMCA of South Hampton Roads will lease a portion of it for its programs.

County Manager Dan Scanlon said YMCA of South Hampton Roads approved the agreement at a meeting last week. As part of the bargain, the YMCA will provide up to $10,000 toward the design and development costs for the facility.

County commissioners said the project, which has been discussed at least since 2005, has been a long time coming.

“This is something that many commissioners have been involved in over the years, whether you’re on the board now or whether you were on the board years ago when this idea started,” board Vice Chairman Paul O’Neal said. “It’s been something that has been near and dear to me and to many of you, and I just think it’s a good thing. I appreciate all the board members coming together on this. I’m looking forward to the shovel in the ground.”

The current plan is to start construction no later than Dec. 1, 2010. Operations at the center are slated to begin no later than Dec. 31, 2011, but county officials hope the center will be open by spring 2011.

Besides a YMCA, the center will feature a senior center and offices and facilities for the Currituck Parks and Recreation Department, Scanlon said. There’s also space for the possible inclusion of health-care providers, he added.

According to Scanlon, the county and the YMCA will be responsible for their own operating costs in the facility. The YMCA plans to recover its costs through membership fees, which will be similar to those charged by other South Hampton Roads YMCA facilities in the region.

How much space the YMCA will need in the new center is currently unknown. So is the Currituck YMCA’s projected membership. Answering both questions will be part of a “comprehensive development plan” the YMCA plans to undertake over the next four months, Billy George, chief operations officer for YMCA of South Hampton Roads, said.

“(Figuring out how much space we’ll need and how many members we might have) is all part of the due diligence period,” George said Thursday.

The YMCA plans to find out how many members it already has who live in Currituck. George said the organization, which has facilities in Nags Head, Great Bridge and Elizabeth City, has a lot of members living in the Moyock area. The YMCA hopes to draw members from a wide area, he said.

“We want to build a YMCA in the middle of Currituck that gets people to drive” from different places in the Albemarle area, George said. “You could live in Camden, but if you work at the airport in Currituck County, it’s only a mile and a half drive” to the YMCA.

Scanlon said $12 million would be a “reasonable cost” for the YMCA-recreation center. He noted that the facility was originally slated to cost more than $20 million.

Commissioner John Rorer expressed concerns about the possibility of cost overruns during construction.

But Scanlon said the project will benefit from guidance by YMCA officials.

“The YMCA is bringing to the table their expertise in operating these kinds of facilities,” he said. “They have a very good handle on what the YMCA’s footprint should look like.”

Scanlon said a local YMCA board will also be created to help operate the facility.

“They will help the YMCA folks determine what programs and what activities will be offered at our facility, so we’ll have a lot of local input in the operations of that center,” he said.

County officials say the construction costs will be funded through a combination of property, land transfer and sales taxes.

Board of Commissioners Chairman Owen Etheridge said a study conducted by East Carolina University some years ago concluded that a majority of Currituck residents wanted a recreation facility but didn’t want to pay higher taxes to build it.

“That’s why we knew we would have to save the money to do this,” he said. “We’ve been fortunate to have revenues that we’ve been able to save for the past few years.”