CLARION, Pa. (EYT) — The Clarion County YMCA has announced its new facility will open on January 31, 2019.Jesse Kelly, the Clarion County YMCA Branch Director, told exploreClarion.com earlier this week, “We are really hoping for early February. We have a final construction meeting coming up, and we are going to try to press them for a firm date on completion. Once we get that, it will give us a week-and-a-half, two weeks to move in.”
On Friday, the YMCA finalized their plans and announced a slightly earlier Grand Opening and Ribbon Cutting Ceremony date of Thursday, January 31, 2019.
“The opening is going to be a little later than we had originally hoped.”
In late November, Kelly said the Y was hoping for a mid-January opening while saying at the time that was a fluent process.
Kelly said the mid-January date wasn’t able to be a reality because the HVAC (Heating and Air Conditioning) unit wasn’t ready to go which pushed back the installation of the gym floor at the new facility located on Mayfield Road adjacent to Clarion Oaks Golf Course.
“There was a delay ordering some of the HVAC units. It wasn’t our fault,” Kelly said. “It is a big unit that goes on top of the building. It was thought to be in the queue for manufacturing but wasn’t. When they intercepted the problem, it was expedited in the manufacturing process and delivered.”
Kelly said until the HVAC unit could be delivered, installed, and tested, the gym floor couldn’t be installed.
“There has to be a certain environment to install the floor,” Kelly said. “If there is too much humidity, it will ruin the floor. It was kind of a domino effect. The unit had to be installed, then the manufacturer had to get them going. That delayed the gym floor install. It (the gym floor) is now in the process of being installed.”
Kelly said the YMCA was prepared for a scenario like this.
“We have absorbed it and are moving forward,” Kelly said. “Everything is progressing nicely now. It was a speed bump at the end. It was prepared for. We wouldn’t want to open a facility and still be working on the gym floor. We are well along now. There is water in the pool. There are just some final finishes going on in some areas. By mid-January, we will be pretty much done except the gym floor, but we don’t want to open up until the entire building is open.”
The YMCA was originally throwing around the idea of having a “soft” opening prior to the “grand” opening, but now Kelly said the goal shifted to having the “grand” opening the same day the facility opens.
“We saw that model work very well for a YMCA near Indianapolis, the Lafayette Family YMCA,” Kelly said. “We took a trip out there in early December, and that is exactly what they did. They organized a grand opening, so there was minimal downtown. We want to do a grand opening day and do it the right way”
The current Clarion County YMCA facility will close on Tuesday, January 29, at 5:00 p.m. The YMCA will be closed on January 30.
The Grand Opening of the new facility will be held on January 31 beginning with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 10:00 a.m. Donors will also be recognized at this time.
The ceremony will be followed by facility tours for members and the public.
At 11:00 a.m., the new YMCA will be open for public use.
Additionally, there will be an open house for the facility’s child care center on Thursday, January 24, and Friday, January 25, from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. on both days.
In the meantime, YMCA staff will be busy coordinating the move.
“There is a lot that will go into it,” Kelly said. “We need to start piecing together the move. Continuing to operate (the current) branch presents its own challenges. We need to get everything ready to operate over there for our membership.”
One of the things that is already completed at the building is the installation of the YMCA signs, which has Kelly excited.
“The signs going up, that was pretty cool,” Kelly said. “There are two of them. One by the child-care entrance and a big one by the main entrance. It is history in the making, the official signs. You don’t realize how big the one is until you walk next to it. It helps the building stand out.”
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