The YMCA is dramatically shrinking the size of their planned McIntire Park facility, Rachana Dixit reports in the Progress. Recall that the city gave away $2M of public park to the Young Men’s Christian Association after the group agreed to build the facility and allow the Charlottesville High School swim team to have priority to the $1.25M lap pool (which the city paid for). The 75,000 square foot facility has shrunk by a third to 50,000 square feet, which the organization says is a result of a lack of donations because of a tight economy. They need to raise $15M, but they’re stuck at $7.5M. The good news is that the softball fields aren’t going anywhere. The smaller size of the building means that there’s no longer any reason to tear them up.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
foursix and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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But then we are back to the question of multipurpose fields vs single purpose fields…
$7.5M isn’t going to provide much of a facility. The Y should wait until it raises the rest.
There are plenty of places to put a multi-purpose field near the parking lots, if I remember the picture on Charlottesville Tomorrow correctly.
You see a flat space that is 120 yards by 50 yards?
Why those dimensions?
This is what can happen when a governmental entity relies upon the private sector – and in this case the non-profit private sector – to build and maintain infrastructure on public land.
Waldo, thanks for using the complete name of the YMCA. I think alot of people forget that it is a Christian Organization. While in the U.S. it has been very welcoming to other faiths, and generally non-proselytizing, the same isn’t true in other countries (where it can be more evangelical). Likewise, there’s no guarantee that they couldn’t eventually go the way of the Boy Scouts and begin discriminating on a religious basis, which would definitely raise some church/state issues since they’d be on public land.
I have been assured by both the parks and people on City Council that this is unlikely and it would terminate their lease agreement, but it’s still an issue the public should consider.
Oh well, back to playing softball!!
I guess the soccer leagues will have to go back to playing on their multiple fields in other parts of the city/county.
Softball fields can be multipurpose.
You can:
1) Play softball
2) Play kickball
3) Play baseball
4) Roll around in the dirt
5) Run laps
See danpri, there are other uses for the fields!
City YMCA several decades = City CPC, perhaps?
Drat, my plus signs went away. Try this:
City plus YMCA plus several decades equals City plus CPC, perhaps?
How come the = sign hung around, but the plus signs went away, Waldo?
I have no idea, oniss. They don’t for me, either. I’ve never encountered this particular bug, but I’m guessing it’s the JavaScript that’s used to post things without a page reload. After the General Assembly session is done, and I get my life back, I’m going to overhaul cvillenews.com, and bugs like this will disappear.
danpri, are conservatives expecting the public to underwrite their recreational activities now? Just trying to keep track between the differences of conservatives and liberals.
I really don’t care about conservative, liberal, multipurpose fields or any of this other crap which you people have been discussing. I want the YMCA to relocate and leave McIntire Park as it is. This is the only real place left in the City for peace, quiet and serenity and we don’t need this facility in this park, or any other park for that matter.
I have to admit, allowing a religious based organization, albeit one that seems rather friendly, to be placed on public land really bothers me. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how this can be allowed to happen legally. For another thing, isn’t the Y taking on a big risk since someone could bring a lawsuit charging discrimination which would would threaten the lease. How can they take such risks. And the city is taking a risk because if someone sues the Y, they can also sue the city since it’s on their land. Why are taxpayers having to take such risks. It’s just not cool. If the city wants a pool and some indoor facilities, they should just build them. It would probably cost taxpayers less in the long run.
If this goes through, let’s get together, form a mock religion, and then try to build something on public lands. Satanic bowling alley anyone. :-)
“If the city wants a pool and some indoor facilities, they should just build them. It would probably cost taxpayers less in the long run.”
The city naively thought it was getting something for nothing. That’s why they insisted upon the Y’s placing it in McIntire Park rather than at PVCC.
“This is the only real place left in the City for peace, quiet and serenity…” the place is noisy and has been so for years.
Actually if we were building a bowling alley then my suggestion would be to use a long-established made up religion, like the Discordians. After all, they already have a creation myth involving a bowling alley and an exploding monkey.
Seriously though, I think it does raise some serious concerns. After all, this is Jefferson’s town after all. As I understand it, he intentionally didn’t include a chapel in his designs and there was quite a bit of controversy in town about the decision to build one at UVa. As a compromise, it was built, but not on the lawn as advocates had originally intended. Nonetheless, I understand many were peeved that people could have thwarted Jefferson’s will in building one at all.
I can only suspect that were Jefferson around, he’d certainly be questioning the idea of allowing a religious organization exclusive access to public land, even a nominally religious organization like the YMCA.