by J. Brooks Terry
Staff Writer
Regulars of the First Coast’s oldest YMCA may not recognize the place pretty soon.
Built in 1954, the Yates Family YMCA on Riverside Avenue has already seen its steam room retiled and its pool resurfaced. But management said this week that more than $200,000 will be pumped into refurbishing the center’s second floor wellness center.
“We’re going to be purchasing about 60 new cardiovascular machines for about $200,000,” said Todd Rosenbaum, branch manager for the Yates center. “We’ll also be doing some recarpeting as well.”
Those upgrades are expected to take place later this year over the course of approximately 11 days. Rosenbaum said there should be very little down time while the machines are being switched out.
“We’re hoping to address that very quickly and resume our operations,” he said.
However, the most significant YMCA renovation could be coming within three years. Rosenbaum said a new center, likely to be built adjacent to the Yates facility, is already being planned.
“We’ve been talking about it for some time and it looks like that’s going to be the next big thing for us,” he said. “We’re all very excited about it.”
Rosenbaum said the YMCA had considered selling its Northbank property and moving across the street to help cover construction costs, but ultimately concluded that it “liked its current property better.”
“And that’s basically where we are on that,” he said. “Ideally we would move forward on the new facility while allowing the current center to remain open.”
That way, he said, there would be “little to no down time.”