What began as a public comment from an Alexandria mother is now prompting city officials to consider how, or if, the city could bring a YMCA to town.
At the Nov. 6 city council meeting, Alexandria resident Olivia Crowder asked the council to consider investigating what it would take to bring a YMCA to the city. That discussion continued at the most recent meeting on Dec. 4.
“I was just going to propose the idea of getting a YMCA out here, just as I’m a mother of two, and we have lots of family, but we see ourselves wandering out of the community, either to go down to Fort Thomas or even to Kings Island to get to a public pool,” Crowder said at the Nov. 6 meeting.
Crowder said she had even taken the step of meeting with the chief developer officer of the YMCA of Greater Cincinnati prior to approaching the city council.
Alexandria Councilmember Laura Fincher said she moved to the city in the summer of 2023, and then the next month, she joined the Fort Thomas YMCA. Now, Fincher said she’s been going about three days a week for two years.
During the Dec. 4 city council meeting, Fincher said she, the mayor, and the city administrator, David Plummer, met with several executives from the Cincinnati YMCA to learn more about the process for starting a YMCA, the cost, and the different options.
The full-size YMCA has a price tag of $35-$40 million. Fincher said that typically looks like raising about $25 million in state, federal, local grant money and then about $10 million from something like a capital campaign.
The other ideas Fincher said are smaller-scale, like an Express YMCA or just having programming at an existing facility.
“An Express YMCA, which is, if you think of it like the YMCA bought Planet Fitness by Walmart, and put in a group exercise room, a childcare room, and then have the open gym. That’s kind of like a small way that some YMCAs start out in communities,” Fincher said. “They can also start out by offering their programming in communities. So, like, they could even come out here and use the new city center or the AJ Jolly Park or something, and start running summer child care programs.”
Alexandria Councilmember Stacey Graus said that when he talks to people, what they want is the pool.
“They don’t want the people coming in and starting a program and 10 years later getting a pool. They want the pool,” he said. “The grant writing, that’s the hard part. Trying to get the grant writing-$10 million is not easy. To get the people from the community to donate that much, you have to have the grant money first before you can even do that.”
Schabel said during the meeting, the YMCA representative said they have been concreting over more pools than they’ve been making because they can’t find people to work them, and the insurance is high.
“It’s just a loser as far as money goes, but it can be done in the right situation,” Schabel said. “They are still building some, but most of them they’re paving over and turning into water features.”
Fincher said the city is still in conversation about next steps and whether they want to try to get a group together to pursue the idea.