Plans for a new YMCA at McIntire Park gained momentum at the July 9 City Council work session thanks in part to a figure that rolled onto Parks and Recreations Director Mike Svetz’s deck that day: $565,000 to renovate just the locker rooms at the Smith and Crow city pools. Even councilors that weren’t wild about the proposed $14 million YMCA facility acknowledged that, faced with the cost of renovating the city’s indoor pools, a YMCA would be a practical business decision.
 McIntire Park would be the location of a city YMCA, to include among other amenities two pools, a running track, two basketball courts and a fitness room. |
That’s not to say there aren’t sticking points. One is the $2 million the city would contribute to the YMCA’s construction. Councilor Kendra Hamilton pointed out that it was the same amount Albemarle County would pay, even though the city would provide land and public transportation. The other is the location. Hamilton and Councilor Kevin Lynch both bristled at the four to six acres of parkland the city would lease to the YMCA for a nominal fee (though Council seems not to have a problem with the parkland acreage the Meadowcreek Parkway would eat up).
Council directed Svetz to begin drafting a sample lease for the YMCA facility and will discuss it further at the end of August. Notably absent from the discussion was the issue of who the YMCA would serve, previously a contentious issue. It turns out, it is an issue raised almost everywhere a new YMCA is proposed, with the help of a national organization that makes it a policy to oppose them.
The International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association (IRSHA) is a trade association representing for-profit health clubs. One of its stated missions is to oppose “tax-exempt competition.” Into this category falls the YMCA. IHRSA argues that YMCAs are essentially government-subsidized competitors that pose unfair competition to for-profit clubs.
If IHRSA’s argument against YMCA’s is the same as ACAC owner Phil Wendel’s opposition to a Charlottesville YMCA, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Wendel sits on IHRSA’s Board of Directors and has given more than $20,000 to its Industry Leadership Council, a group of club owners that, according to IHRSA 2005 Public Policy Honor Roll, work “to advance the industry’s public policy agenda and protect the industry from harmful regulatory and legislative proposals.” Wendel was unavailable for comment for this story.
Kelly Kennai of the YMCA of USA says the national YMCA is aware of IHRSA’s lobbying against it. Kennai says the national YMCA hasn’t seen too much impact from IHRSA, but that “there have definitely been lawsuits we’ve faced at the state level.” The website www.ymove.org, a grassroots organization that opposed a now-approved YMCA building in West Chester, Pennsylvania—a town that also features an ACAC facility—linked to an IHRSA paper titled “The Case for Fair Competition.” Both the site and paper have been taken down in the last week.
C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.
