YMCA Officials Return With Smaller Project
Park Cities YMCA officials have returned to the University Park City Council with a smaller project than they originally presented, but the building is still larger than the council’s recommendation.
In early September, the council voted unanimously to not deny the YMCA’s plan, but rather tweak it, capping the project at 52,000 square feet; the project was submitted at 65,000 square feet. During Tuesday evening’s council meeting, Mayor Dick Davis announced that Y officials had submitted new plans, but the council did not have enough time to review them. The item will be placed on the council’s Nov. 6 agenda.
“Essentially this is a counter-proposal by the Y, and we just need a bit more time,” said Mayor Pro Tem Robert Clark.
The Y’s new proposal comes in around 57,000 square feet, delicately reported as the 52,000-square-foot cap, plus 10 percent for “areas which do not create additional parking need” in the group’s proposal. The new plan figures a roughly 6,500-square-foot reduction in activity space, project architect Duncan Fulton said following the meeting.
For more information, pick up this week’s Park Cities People.
After what many considered to be an arbitrary and unexplained reduction in square footage, it is encouraging that the Council is willing to consider meeting the YMCA somewhere in the middle.
Let us hope that all parties understand that concessions from all sides are necessary and that the divisiveness that has plagued the process is behind us.
The Y doesn’t want to minimize the cash cow a Huge Y will be. So they want to ignore the reality that they grossly understated the traffic effects of their new proposed Y. The City’s traffic review showed this stark fact. And the City Council cut the building down to 52000 sq ft to at least minimize the excessive traffic the new Y will cause.
The arbitrary figures involved are the undisclosed financial take that the Metro Y gets from the Park Cities Y.It appears the Downtown Y says we need this size of Y in your neighborhood so give us the cash flow we desire. So what if they local streets are overrun because of the significantly increased usages-gym, more classrooms, tripling the size of the preK school, etc.
The City Council addressed all this usage by limiting the size. And Downtown Y doesn’t like it. So another bite at the apple…
“Areas which do not create additional parking need”, such as hallways, closets, staircases and utility rooms. It always sounds so benign when developers like the Y or Legacy Hillcrest start using these magical words. As if you know, hey we’re just asking for a broom closet here and there. Bovine Scatology! If the Council agrees to exempt 10% of their total area for these kinds of uses, that gives them an additional 10% space to use for areas that do generate more parking demand and traffic. Stoopid.