An extra acre is needed for the YMCA of Simcoe/Muskoka’s new community hub in Barrie.
The Y recently abandoned its plans for the two-acre H-Block property, located beside the Barrie Public Library's downtown branch, and is now looking for a minimum of three acres, said Jill Tettmann, president and chief executive officer for the local YMCA.
“I spoke with the mayor (Jeff Lehman) last week and he wasn’t aware of anything,” she told BarrieToday. “So we’re going to keep looking and exploring what the opportunities might be for that. But I don’t know if there’s anything in downtown Barrie that we can afford.”
Tettmann said the Y has had calls from individuals, its donors, members and even some developers about potential locations.
“I think it sparked a lot of interest, which is good,” she said, “and we would be very grateful if someone donated the land to us.”
The Y’s original plan was to spend $45 million on a 77,000-square-foot community hub at the H-Block, at 50 Worsley St., although realistically the price tag was expected to be close to $60 million.
Instead the bill was going to be approximately $79 million, which included $12 million for underground parking, plus project management, furnishings, equipment and legal fees, Tettmann said.
“So it became a plus, plus, plus and it was not realistic for our association,” she said. “As a charity with limited reserves we just couldn’t compromise our long-term ability to serve our broader communities, to put all of our money into a build.”
A three-acre site also allows parking to be above-ground, cutting costs by $12 million.
So the community hub’s location, along with its size, is an important consideration.
“We want to make sure that our programs and services are accessible,” Tettmann said. “We want to be on a bus route, we want to make sure that all of our programs, our visions for a community hub, including our youth transitional housing, our rehabilitation partnership with RVH (Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre), our child-care centre, are accessible.
“It’s where we need to meet with our population, so how we serve that population and where we go is going to be important.”
The YMCA wants to break ground on the community hub no later than the fall of 2024, which could once again affect the project’s cost.
But Tettmann said she believes some of the construction costs impacted by COVID are going to drop a little bit, but if they don’t there will be contingencies built into the project’s budget.
“We have huge contingency in our costing that we received on the design on H-Block,” she said, “about $17.5 million in just contingencies -- which was rising costs, rising design costs, rising construction costs, so that was taken into consideration in terms of the build.”
The new YMCA facility at the H-Block was to include licensed child-care spaces, a youth centre with transitional housing and outreach support, a rehabilitation space for cardiac and cancer post-care patients, and recreation areas for fitness programs.
Its financing would have come from a variety of sources.
In early summer 2021, the province announced $29.9-million in funding. Prior to the pandemic, in the fall of 2019, the Y launched its ‘100 Reasons Y’ fundraising campaign. There was also to be funding from the County of Simcoe.
Proceeds from selling the Y’s former Grove Street property, $4.5 million, were to go toward the new downtown facility. The Y announced in August 2020 that it was not financially viable to reopen the Grove Street facility, given its age and the pandemic’s impact on the Y.
The latest plans for 10-24 Grove St. W. show an Official Plan amendment and rezoning approved by council in October 2017.
What’s proposed there is the development of three buildings of 21, 25 and 25 storeys, along with an eight-storey, mid-rise building and a five-storey parking podium for a total of 928 residential rental units. Its site plan remains under review.
A new YMCA facility had long been part of HIP Developments’ plans at 34-50 Bradford St. and a portion of 125 Dunlop St. W., for a project that now includes two towers of 30 and 26 storeys, and a five-storey podium, for a total of 630 residential units. There would be ground-floor commercial space and a parkette in the remains of the former Prince of Wales school. Council is expected to consider approval of these plans late this year or in early 2023.
HIP’s plans changed with the possible location of a supervised consumption site (SCS) right around the corner from the development site, at 11 Innisfil St. An SCS provides a safe space and sterile equipment for individuals to use pre-obtained drugs under the supervision of health care staff; consumption means taking opioids and other drugs by injection, smoking, snorting or orally.
So HIP moved its buildings to front onto Bradford Street, where the new Y facility was to be located, so there was no longer room for a new YMCA.
More than a year ago the H-Block surfaced as a possible site for the Y’s community hub, but that has now fallen by the wayside as well.
It’s been a long search for a new YMCA site in Barrie, Tettmann admits.
“It’s now been over a decade and we have now investigated four sites, along with the possibility of rejuvenating the old Grove Street site years ago and whether that was a possibility,” she said. “I do believe we can find a reasonable site and build within our budget, which is still a high budget.”
