AUBURN — The YMCA could swap its Turner Street location for a state-of-the-art aquatics and fitness center with room for 5,000 members in Lewiston’s Bates Mill No. 5, according to a plan being put together by YMCA CEO Steven Wallace.
It’s one of several potential changes at the Auburn-Lewiston YMCA drawn up by a strategic planning committee that Wallace said he plans to propose to his board of directors next week.
Other plans include:
• Changing the use of the 93 acres of trees and fields off Center Street in Auburn that the organization bought in 2011. Until now, plans had called for using that area to build a recreation center. Instead, Wallace said the land could become a summer camp surrounded by recreational trails.
• Selling the YMCA’s current location on Turner Street and possibly Camp Connor on Range Pond in Poland.
• Creating partnerships with hospitals and health care providers and with recreational programs in Lewiston and Auburn to help operate the Bates Mill YMCA and youth programs around the city.
“Right now, I’m talking about what this can all look like,” Wallace said. “On Wednesday, I can say yes, this is the direction we are going to go, these are new members and this is our plan of attack.”
Wallace said the board is scheduled to add five new members with experience in health care, building development and architecture.
“These are all being brought on for specific reasons,” Wallace said.
It’s a tactical change for the YMCA, which has been raising money to build a recreational complex on the 92 acres north of Auburn’s downtown since 2011. The property includes trees and fields along Stetson and North River roads between the Androscoggin River and Route 4.
Now it would become a year-round outdoor recreational area, Wallace said.
“We are looking at more or less creating trails for the public,” he said. “We are looking at a fitness trail, a fully accessible trail, a dog park and things of that nature. And we would open that up to the community.”
A summer camp would go on the interior of the land.
“That would be where we have our camp and some Y facilities,” he said.
Camp Connor, the YMCA’s 47-year-old summer camp, could be sold.
“That area just does not give us the opportunity for growth that we need to be able to pull in programs for teens,” he said.
He has similar plans for the group’s Turner Street location.
“Once the plans are made for this, this building could be sold,” he said. “That will all be on the table as the board talks about this next week.”
The biggest part of the plan could be the redevelopment of historic Bates Mill No. 5. Wallace has plans for an aquatics center with a competition-size pool for swim meets as well as weight rooms, cardio-exercise rooms and child care facilities. The YMCA currently has 2,700 members, and Wallace said he thinks the move could almost double that.
“It would be where TD Bank has its center, so we would have access to those corporate memberships,” he said. “But you have to remember that 5,000 or 6,000 people are also within a stone’s throw of Bates Mill No. 5.”
He thinks the child care center could also be a boon for downtown employees.
“They’d be able to go to work, drop off their kids and visit them during lunch if they want,” Wallace said.
Grow L+A and developer Tom Platz already have announced their hopes of turning the massive building into a business center with multiple uses, including a co-op grocery store, a health and wellness center, an indoor farm operation and business incubator space.
Lewiston councilors voted Tuesday to give Grow L+A and Platz Associates another year to secure commitments for the space and develop the building. Platz said Wednesday the YMCA project is one of several he and Grow L+A are negotiating for to occupy the space.
“We are dealing with people who are looking at large spaces — one for 100,000 square feet, a couple at 60,000 square feet, a couple at 20,000 and maybe one for 40,000,” Platz said. “Some are big companies, some are smaller. The larger the company with national roots, decision-making does not happen the way it might if they were just here in L-A. But the process has been started and the next step is to take them all through it and answer all their questions.”
Wallace said the YMCA would have to partner with local groups to develop the Bates Mill building. That would include Grow L+A and Platz, but also area hospitals.
It must have those partnerships to succeed, he said.
“It all depends on collaborations,” he said. “If the Y was trying to do it by itself, that’s why we don’t have a $15 million compound on our 93 acres like we planned back in 2011. It’s just not really feasible in this community. So we need to make sure we right-size the Y to make sure we are what the community needs and what the community will be willing to support.”
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