YMCA eyes August opening

Business leaders given sneak peek of new facility

By KAYLEIGH KARUTIS, The Leader-Herald
JOHNSTOWN — Some area business leaders Monday got their first glimpse inside the Fulton County YMCA’s new Harrison Street facility, which officials said they expect to be open by August.

At a tour of the unfinished facility, local business leaders and friends of the YMCA expressed their happiness over the facility and its near-completion.

YMCA Board President John McDonough said the opening depends on several bureaucratic hurdles the facility must clear.

The most crucial of those hurdles will be addressed Tuesday when the Gloversville Planning Board votes on extending a

sewer line to the facility. The board tabled the vote on the extension at a late May meeting. The board will vote on the resolution Tuesday. It must receive four votes from the seven-person board to pass.

McDonough said he is hopeful the board will pass the resolution. He said extending the sewer line is the last major construction the facility must undergo.

“Right now, we’re polishing up,” he said.

The pool will be filled in the next three days and the flooring in the gym will be laid soon, he said. Air conditioning will be connected throughout the building, he said.

At the front desk, users of the facility will be given a card to swipe, so officials can keep the facility secure and monitor each person’s use.

The main entryway and lobby will have wireless Internet access, so parents waiting for their children to finish a class or practice can use their laptops.

The main cardio room has a small indoor track, a racquetball court brought, in pieces, from the old YMCA in Gloversville and a separate weight room.

The cardio room will have four 50-inch televisions with sound systems attached to each individual piece of cardio equipment, so people exercising can plug their headphones into the sound system and listen to their choice of channel.

The gymnasium is equipped with six basketball hoops, recessed goal stations, and a multipurpose floor for basketball, volleyball, soccer and tennis.

A suite of offices toward the back of the building will house Nathan Littauer’s HealthLink facilities, which are currently in the Johnstown Mall.

Nearby are rooms for day care. Only employees and parents of children in the program will be allowed to access the area. One new feature will be infant care, which the YMCA previously had not provided and had to receive a special state certification for.

The facility will have an aerobics room, a teen center and a baby-sitting room for parents who want to exercise and need a place for their children to stay. There will be four locker rooms, including a family locker room for parents with small children.

Nearly every room is connected to the rest of the facility by multiple windows. The six-lane pool has several viewing windows, as does the gymnasium, the cardio room, the aerobics room and the teen center.

Officials announced the naming of the multiple rooms during the tour, including the Fanch Family Swimming Pool, the Brown Family Teen Center, the St. Thomas Exercise Facility and BB Taylor Child Care.

A wall of faux bricks surrounding a bronze plaque will commemorate those who have made a significant contribution to the facility. Display cases containing history of the YMCA and Fulton County and children’s art will be placed in the main foyer. The name of each room in the facility will be displayed in prominent silver letters, as will the four tenets of the YMCA: caring, honesty, respect and responsibility.

YMCA Chief Executive Officer Steve Serge said the facility must receive approval from the state Department of Health, Children and Family Services and must obtain a certificate of occupancy before it can open.

YMCA members Anne and David King, who attended the tour and said they are longtime supporters of the YMCA, said they were overwhelmed and impressed by the facility.

“This is just beyond anything I could have imagined,” Anne King said.

David King agreed, calling it a necessary and integral part of the community.

“It’s uniting the people of Fulton County,” he said.

The Gloversville YMCA’s recreational facilities on East Fulton Street will close when the new YMCA opens. The YMCA wants to expand its housing program at the East Fulton Street site. The YMCA’s Johnstown facility also will close.



Kayleigh Karutis covers rural Fulton County. She can be reached at ruralnews@leaderherald.com.