TERRE HAUTE —
Sixteen-thousand kids just started summer vacation in Vigo County.
Some will play baseball or softball. Some will attend camps. Some will work part-time jobs. Some will prepare for college. Some will watch TV, hang out, or “just chill” for 21⁄2 months.
Unfortunately, for the first time in more than a century, none will participate in a summer program at a Terre Haute YMCA, YWCA or Family Y. The city’s connection to a Y — of any sort — ended last year. The Riverbank Family & Fitness Center (formerly the Terre Haute Family Y, until it disaffiliated from the YWCA last October) closed in December, unable to cover its payroll and monthly utility costs from revenues. The sad ending frustrated and disappointed many loyal supporters of the facility at Fairbanks Park.
Indeed, a city this size should have a Y. Terre Haute is America’s 475th-largest town. There are 2,687 YMCAs and 300 YWCAs in the country. Certainly, the Haute should fit into that picture.
The possibility still exists.
The YMCA of Clay County board of directors is considering expanding its programming into the Terre Haute market, and has discussed the option of utilizing the facility at Fairbanks Park, said Deborah Plummer, CEO of the YMCA of Clay County. The Clay YMCA is using a research firm, SEER Analytics, to conduct a market analysis of Terre Haute to assess the community’s needs, the programming a YMCA could provide and the potential support from the community.
Plummer emphasized that the YMCA of Clay County intends to continue serving Clay County just as it always has done. “We wouldn’t want to jeopardize anything we’ve already done here in Clay County” by expanding into Terre Haute, she said. The Clay YMCA started in 1927, and has occupied its existing facility on East Kruzan Street for the past 11 years. It has 1,700 membership units, totaling more than 4,000 individual members, Plummer said. That amounts to one out of every five people in Clay County, she added.
A YMCA could, once again, benefit Terre Haute, too, even in a market that includes several privately owned fitness centers. “I think the niche for the Y is that YMCAs are open to everyone,” Plummer said. Programs involve infants to the elderly, and the now-dormant facility at Fairbanks Park includes a pool, which is popular for seniors as well as children learning to swim. When it comes to activities for youngsters once the school year ends, YMCAs — like the one in Clay County — conduct summer day camps.
The past decade, with the recession and financial ups and downs, was rough for Terre Haute’s Ys. The local YWCA and YMCA combined resources in 2006 as a matter of economic survival. Eventually, the old YMCA building at Sixth and Walnut streets closed, and the two merged into the Terre Haute Family Y at the YWCA’s more modern riverside location. Last October, they split from the YWCA and became Riverbank Family & Fitness. A trust fund paid for upgrades to the building and a membership drive boosted the number of patrons, but it still wasn’t enough to cover costs, Riverbank officials said, and it closed. The Indiana Attorney General’s office is investigating complaints related to Riverbank’s debts. But those issues will not affect or involve the City of Terre Haute, which inherited control of the Fairbanks Park facility, or any entity that would move into the building, Mayor Duke Bennett said Wednesday.
“We are free and clear of that,” Bennett said. “It won’t affect the city, and it wouldn’t affect anybody who would move in there.”
Other details related to the ownership of the building’s contents and the property also have been cleared up, Bennett said. The city has a “verbal agreement” with two banks to purchase the contents, the mayor explained, and that equipment will belong to the Parks Department, as will the facility and its grounds. A prospective tenant would have to present a proposal to the Parks Board, similar to the situation at the Booker T. Washington Community Center, he said.
Bennett intends to reserve one-third of the 36,000-square-foot facility for city offices, leaving the other 24,000 square feet for a tenant. “That building is huge,” he said. City offices now located on the second floor of City Hall would move to the Fairbanks Park building, under the mayor’s plan. That would allow the city Police Department to move from its current Wabash Avenue location back into City Hall, which would save the city money in rent payments or the $3.5-million cost of a new police facility, Bennett said.
With the city paying its share of the Fairbanks facility’s utilities and expenses, a prospective tenant’s costs would be reduced by one-third, he said. That could enhance a family fitness center’s chances for viability.
The YMCA of Clay County is carefully studying the situation. SEER Analytics should complete its market analysis by next month, so the Clay YMCA’s board can review the survey at its July 21 meeting, Plummer said. With that data concerning a new Terre Haute YMCA, the board can decide “about moving forward or stopping,” she added.
When Riverbank closed in December, the YMCA of Clay County offered to accept the defunct Terre Haute center’s members free through the end of that month. Nearly 40 people took to the Clay agency’s offer, Plummer said, and about a dozen wound up joining that YMCA several miles away.
Clearly, the Y remains a part of Terre Haute’s consciousness. The YMCA opened locally in 1892. The YWCA debuted here in 1902. And they kept going, uninterrupted, through some pretty rough times, including two world wars and the Great Depression. The prospect of a revived YMCA should energize Terre Haute. After all, the folks at the YMCA of Clay County are pretty interested.
“At this point,” Plummer said, “I’m cautiously optimistic.”
Optimism and the start of summer are a good mix.
Mark Bennett can be reached at (812) 231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.
Mark Bennett B-Sides
Related Photos
-
Mark Bennett
Discussion
B-SIDES: Terre Haute faces rare Y-less summer, but remedy possible
- Mark Bennett B-Sides
-
-
MARK BENNETT: Time for surf, sand and a good book
I can read a book on the beach. Until I start sweating. Then it feels like exercise, minus the fitness perks. My brain shifts into neutral as the waves roll in, blissfully washing away footprints in the sand and my inclination to think. Better put, I enjoy starting a book on the beach, and finishing it later, elsewhere.
-
Police: Mom, son conspire to kill witness
The Clay County Sheriff’s Department seems to have prevented what it believes was a mother-and-son conspiracy to commit murder.
-
Banks of the Wabash Festival is more than just yearly entertainment
Pioneers think counterintuitively. Where others see widespread apathy, they focus on the possibility for progress. In a way, the 2013 Year of the River celebration began in the 1970s.
-
MARK BENNETT: After running for 28 hours straight, what’s another 5 miles?
Some phrases can only be uttered by a few people, or none at all.
-
MARK BENNETT: Glitches show limitations of high-stakes testing concept
The dog ate my homework. That age-old excuse — based on a shockingly unforeseen complication — rarely works for a kid who didn’t finish yesterday’s math assignment. Yet, in a role reversal, Indiana school children, along with their teachers and administrators, are left to accept an explanation for a disruption best described as the mother of all ironies.
-
MARK BENNETT: One step at a time to save lives
Joan Brown.
Remember that name. -
MARK BENNETT: Sometimes, the mere posing of questions is significant
The era seems quaint now, almost like a fable. When people left their house doors unlocked. When the sight of a police officer in a school meant it was Career Day.
-
MARK BENNETT: New reality steers Nashville singer to Crossroads for Historical Society concert
People pass through the Crossroads of America for lots of reasons.
Business trips. College campus events. Federal prison sentences. Visits with relatives. Gas pitstops.
Or maybe a career change and a twist of fate.
Ty Brown makes his first stop in downtown Terre Haute as the headliner of a multi-band Sweet Sensations Country Jam concert May 4 in the Ohio Building — a fundraiser for the Vigo County Historical Society. -
MARK BENNETT: Terre Haute barber ‘sharpens up’ customers for 50 years
People streamed through this section of downtown Terre Haute in those days.
“You could hardly walk by here,” John Hochhalter said, pointing toward the sidewalk outside the window.
The bustle has faded since the early 1960s. Hochhalter remains. He’s still barbering in the same shop he and late business partner Kenny Thomas opened a half-century ago this week. -
MARK BENNETT: Memories, emotions rush back with announcement of new pope
I saw a pope once.Read quickly, that sentence sounds too casual, almost as if we’d crossed paths at Home Depot. Say it slowly, though, and the significance comes through.
-
MARK BENNETT: Reflections of grid success stir with Brent Anderson’s passing
A few hundred miles away, and nearly 40 years gone by, a special game ball still occupies a fond place in Rudy Bohinc’s memories.
-
Lent meets ‘The Bucket List’ in Terre Haute
Initially, the concept might conjure images of Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman jumping out of an airplane or sitting atop the Pyramids. Instead, think “Lent Meets ‘The Bucket List’ in Terre Haute.”
-
MARK BENNETT: Never truer: Knowledge vital to narrowing ‘skills gap’
The pillar at the gates of Faber College in the movie “Animal House” bore a wise motto, despite its tongue-in-cheek intent …
-
MARK BENNETT: Great-niece to re-enact Paul Dresser’s musical legacy in Terre Haute show
People can be forgotten. Their lives end, time passes and memories fade.
Often, the only keepers of their legacies are family and friends, who tell and retell their stories, generation to generation.
For Paul Dresser, his fame burned strong enough as a turn-of-the-century, million-seller songwriter to preserve bits of his public notoriety. -
MARK BENNETT: An Olympic takedown
Imagine an iconic image of American sports history erased.
-
MARK BENNETT: Indiana’s ‘skills gap’
A problem lasting decades ceases to be a “problem.” By then, the situation becomes “part of the culture.”
-
MARK BENNETT: America’s best quality of life? Indiana must address flaws, set priorities
Just as the job interview seems smooth, the interviewer drops the question.
“So, where do you see yourself in five years?” -
MARK BENNETT: Pondering what is meant by ‘quality of life’ to Hoosiers
Sometimes it’s sincere. Other times, it’s sarcasm.
You cross paths with a friend, ask how they’re doing, and they say, “Ah, just livin’ the dream.”
Livin’ the dream. What exactly does that involve? Can it be defined? -
MARK BENNETT: By whatever name, stomach virus still a sick story
It’s the ugly side of the cold-and-flu season.
-
MARK BENNETT: Living on the banks
We are the Wabash.
Really. -
MARK BENNETT: Rising young producer lands spot in Sundance Film Festival
When a project clicks, the moment is clear.
-
MARK BENNETT: Remember the 20 children lost
Their names were listed on the screen at the front of the church on Sunday.
Our pastor asked us to choose one and pray for their family. I selected Noah Pozner, just by chance. -
MARK BENNETT: Tasting panel to help find Champagne Velvet’s ‘million-dollar flavor’
Rounding up enough volunteers to serve on a committee can be a struggle.
-
MARK BENNETT: Thanksgiving’s feast can be defined by either the presence of family or the family’s quest for presents
The best gift deals will be gone by 12:01 a.m. Nov. 23.
-
MARK BENNETT: Salvation Army touches many lives
Sometimes, the unexpected happens.
-
MARK BENNETT: Election excellence: 30 out of 32 is pretty darn good
Detroit car makers unveil the latest Mustangs and Corvettes on Wabash Avenue.
-
MARK BENNETT: Climbing the rungs of Lincoln’s Ladder
One crucial quality helped Abraham Lincoln become America’s greatest president.
Courage? Political savvy? Wisdom? Moral character? -
MARK BENNETT: Drop the needle
Over time, excellence and nostalgia inappropriately merge in our minds.
-
No matter the age, voting’s a part of American fabric
The electoral karma seemed, well, unfair.
-
MARK BENNETT: A moment on the brink
Ominous, but distant.
- More Mark Bennett B-Sides Headlines
-
Historic Ruling Set in Affirmative Action Case
Raw: NASCAR Driver Jason Leffler Dies in Wreck
Tiger on Sergio: 'It's Time to Move On'
Raw: India Floods Wash Away Apartment Building
Tebow Thanks Patriots for Opportunity
Raw: Marines Land Osprey on Japanese Ship
Need an Organ? A Lab-Grown One May Work One Day
Failed Cuba-to-Florida Swimmer Won't Try Again
Solar Plane Reaches East Coast
Colorado Springs Wildfire 65% Contained
Ex-NFL Star Chad Johnson Out of Jail
Family Tweets Say Kim Kardashian Gives Birth
Prosecutors Push for Smartphone "Kill Switch"
Raw: Australian Begins Cuba to Florida Swim
Raw: Prince Philip Leaves Hospital After Surgery
FBI Searching Mich. Field in Jimmy Hoffa Case
Raw: Obama, Daughters Visit Trinity College
Obama Welcomes WNBA Champions to White House
Google Launches Internet-beaming Balloons
Raw: FBI Meets Plane After Poison Threat
Caught on Tape: Davie Teacher Accused of Beating Autistic Child
See Lindsay Lohan in Rehab
"Stay Classy" Campaign Aims to Curb Binge Drinking
Lil Wayne's New Music Video Has Some People Outraged
Gaga Ditches Her Crazy Couture
Sesame Street Tackling Tough Topic Parents in Jail
Miss Utah Fumbles Interview Question
Deranged man claims Newark-bound flight was poisoned
Cameron Diaz and Kate Upton Show Off Their Amazing Bikini Bodies
NBA FINALS: Spurs Win Game 5, Lead Series
Exclusive Clip: Jodi Arias: 'Dirty Little Secret'
Amphibious bus filled with tourists sinks
Best Bikini Abs
Mix-Up at Daytime Emmy Awards
Kim K. Is a New Mommy!
Sarah Silverman Roasts Mel Brooks at AFI Tribute
Moderate Cleric Wins Iranian Election
Obama on Fatherhood: 'Best Job I've Got'
