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Bill Wetzel
By Emily Berry
Staff Writer
The YMCA of Metropolitan Chattanooga is spending more than $12 million to beef up its workout facilities.
The organization is making improvements to its downtown Chattanooga, Shallowford Road and Cleveland, Tenn., buildings and constructing a new facility in Fort Oglethorpe.
"It sounds like lot, but we've got some good folks working on it, and it's gone pretty easy," YMCA of Metropolitan Chattanooga CEO Bill Wetzel said.
He said that two years ago the YMCA did a study to identify its facility needs for the next decade, then prioritized the projects.
The YMCA does not have any membership rate increases planned to help pay for the work, spokeswoman Lisa Talley said.
YMCA and Erlanger hospital officials on Thursday announced the kickoff of a public fundraising campaign in hopes of raising $750,000 toward the $6.5 million cost of a new building in North Georgia, campaign chairman Bob Peck said.
Robert Hitchcox, chairman of the North Georgia YMCA Board, said YMCA leaders are hoping to break ground on the new facility by Sept. 1. The new center will be shared with Erlanger hospital, which owns the land on Battlefield Parkway where it will be located.
Erlanger plans to move two family physicians' offices into the new building from the portable building where they now operate.
"We are looking forward to getting them a much better space to operate," Erlanger Chief Operating Officer Charlesetta Woodard-Thompson said Thursday.
The downtown Chattanooga YMCA will get a major overhaul soon, but YMCA officials haven't yet reached a cost estimate for that work, Ms. Talley said.
The Hamilton Family YMCA on Shallowford Road will get 11,000 more square feet of space to make room for additional cardiovascular exercise equipment and weights as well as a large new indoor play structure and a social center intended to provide space for seniors, according to a news release.
Also, work on a major addition is under way at the Cleveland Family YMCA, branch executive Lee McChesney said. That expansion will add 50 percent more space to the facility on Urbane Road, including a youth activity center, a larger member nursery, a teen center and youth locker rooms, he said.
The addition should be complete in about a year, he said. The YMCA raised about $2.6 million and will finance the rest of the cost, he said.
The YMCA, a United Way agency, gives scholarships to those who want to use its facilities or participate in programs but cannot afford regular fees.
E-mail Emily Berry at eberry@timesfreepress.com
