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Plans for new YMCA hub near Barrie downtown library axed due to skyrocketing costs

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Officials with the YMCA are again searching for a new home in Barrie as rising prices have made the organization's current plans out of reach.

The YMCA of Simcoe-Muskoka has announced plans for its new facility in Barrie's H-Block, adjacent to the public library, will not come to fruition. Updated costs for the site are nearly $90 million, far out of reach for the not-for-profit.

"As a not-for-profit charitable organization, we do not have that kind of money and nor does our community right now, so we really need to step back and pause and take a look and see what other sites might be available," says Jill Tettmann, the organization's president and CEO.

The costs were last estimated in November 2019 at approximately $45-million. However, Tettmann attributes the rise mainly to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Parking, which she says is mandatory for the new facility, would have had to be underground at the site previously selected, something she says also added to the overall price. Locating downtown has been a critical part of the organization's vision.

"That was where we believed the need was where we could really fill a gap in some of the services that were missing in the downtown core of Barrie," says Tettmann. "We don't know that there's property downtown that we can afford. So we might have to go a little bit further. We want to make sure that where we end up that there are good service routes, that there's good bus routes, that there's a population that needs the YMCA."

Tettmann calls the new facility a community hub. In addition to the traditional health, fitness and aquatic resources, the new centre will also have child care spaces, transitional youth housing and other programs and services for seniors and youth.

While willing to adjust plans to fit whatever potential land becomes available, Tettmann says the core vision for the new facility will remain intact.

"We think there are some things that we can make a little bit smaller and tweak a little bit in our design, but we don't want to lose the essence of that vision of a community hub that is really much broader than health, fitness & aquatics," she says.

Last year the group received a $29.9-million grant from the province for the new project. That money must be used by 2027.

Tettmann says the new goal is to have shovels in the ground by Fall 2024.

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