Five hundred people RSVP’d to the Northwest Family YMCA’s preview party on the site of the Y’s future home on River Road Oct. 4. Throngs of people braved chilly, wet weather to crowd into tents packed with neon-clad YMCA volunteers handing out fliers about the new facility, healthy snacks and water bottles.
With construction well underway as of May of this year, the Northwest Family YMCA (NWFY) is set to open in spring 2015. At 100,000 square feet, it will be the largest YMCA in the greater Syracuse area. The cost of the project totals $20 million, $6 million of which will come from fundraising. So far, the NFWY has raised $3.2 million.
Sandy Baker, co-chair of the NWFY’s capital campaign, announced at the preview party that the Metro Board and Trustees of the Greater Syracuse YMCA will be donating $1 million toward the construction. The NFWY now has $1.8 million to raise in order to reach its goal.
“Can we do it?” Baker asked the crowd, which answered her with cheers and applause.
“It’s an ambitious goal, but there are so many people who care,” Baker said. “If you’re as excited as I am, you know that we can do it.”
It’s been a long time coming for the NFWY to get to this point. There has been talk for 15 years about a new Baldwinsville-area YMCA, which currently operates out of the Lysander Radisson Community Arena. The town of Lysander recently took over the ice rink and the YMCA will vacate the building next year.
After years of stalled plans, the Lysander Planning Board approved the NFWY’s site plan in July of last year. The complex will feature an aquatic center with three pools, a turf field, a large community room, art and music rooms, family lockers and changing areas, a center for cancer survivors and more.
“This YMCA is going to be bringing people together for healthy activities for a hundred years,” said Chris Iven, communications director of the YMCA of Greater Syracuse.
Many of the Y’s “partygoers” expressed their support for the NWFY project.
“This is phenomenal,” said Joe Flynn of Camillus. “People think the YMCA is a place to work out and swim, but it’s so much more than that.”
Flynn said the new Y will be a boon to area seniors.
“There’s so little in this county directed toward older active adults,” he said. “That demographic is growing significantly and we have to address their quality of life, their mental well-being … as well as their physical well-being.”
Bob and Denise Nicita watched one of their three children decorate a large paper hat made for him in the children’s activity area at the party. The Nicitas, who live in Pennellville, said they are excited about the proximity of the new Y.
“The North Area Y’s the closest, and it’s a haul from [Pennellville],” Denise Nicita said.
“I think it’s a positive thing. I think the area needs something like this. There’s nothing really like it,” Bob Nicita said.
Baker likened the Y’s potential effect on the community to the opening of the Baldwinsville Public Library in 1995, which she said transformed the area.
“Baldwinsville is already this great community and this will make it even better,” she said. “This is life-changing; this will be a legacy.”
The steel framework of the Northwest Family YMCA is about two-thirds complete. To learn more about the project and keep tabs on its progress, visit nwfy.org or “like” the Northwest Family YMCA on Facebook.
