Y? Because downtown matters Despite pandemic-fuelled membership plunge, 110-year-old Vaughan Street fitness, education and child-care facility unveils plans for $15M in upgrades By: Malak Abas Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Thursday, May. 4, 2023

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This article was published 04/05/2023 (856 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Plans for a new and improved downtown YMCA-YWCA, including an indoor splash pad and more child-care spaces, were unveiled Thursday, as the community organization pledged its commitment to the city’s core.

The mood was optimistic as the Vaughan Street facility announced how it hopes to bring back old members and entice new ones. The downtown branch is seeking $15 million in grants from non-profit agencies and all three levels of government for 24 new infant-care spaces, six classrooms open for community groups to use, additional mental-health programming and other support services, improved accessibility features for the heritage building, roof repairs and an indoor splash pad.

It comes at a difficult time for the centre and others across the country. At its peak membership in 2009, the downtown Y had 11,000 members. That number plummeted as the pandemic shut down businesses and sent downtown workers home.

Membership is currently about 2,000.

The 110-year-old institution has been running at a cash deficit for months, but president and CEO Cordella Friesen has set a one-year target to raise funds and focus on creating a new space that she believes could more than double the number of daily visits.

“Downtown Y’s across Canada have had to shut down… and we made the opposite decision, which is we’re going to stay open,” she said.

“We do have some cash on hand, from the pandemic time, to be able to subsidize us. But we only have about a year.”

YMCA-YWCAs nationwide have had to pivot, or close entirely, in the past few years. Regina’s downtown facility had to shut down its fitness and aquatic areas in 2020, citing increased operating expenses and slowing membership exacerbated by the pandemic.

That can’t happen here, Friesen said, adding the facility has been trying out a variety of ideas to bring back old members and draw new ones, including adult memberships that cost $18 every two weeks and include two hours of free parking at Portage Place.

“This place has weathered many ups and downs over the past 110 years, including two world wars, a Great Depression, economic turbulence and recessions,” she said. “And now it is our turn to weather the next storm, which is rebuilding and evolving after a pandemic.”

The downtown Y’s membership was largely driven by people working nearby, and while Winnipeg is still grappling with what the future of downtown will look like, the redevelopment of Portage Place and the Hudson’s Bay building is a sign there could be a brighter future ahead for the facility.

“We need to have a vision… I look at the community (and) I know that we’re needed,” Friesen said. “I feel very (convinced) about our investment in downtown and that we’re an important part of downtown.”

The plans also include moving the Y’s Winnipeg corporate office downtown from its west Portage Avenue location.

Reimagining downtown involves investments in spaces that will entice people to live in the area, not just work or attend events, Mayor Scott Gillingham said.

“We know the key to downtown’s future success is to get even more people living into the downtown, and so it’s facilities and programs like those offered through the Y that are going to be vital to making this an attractive neighbourhood where everybody feels welcome and supported,” he said.

Collectively, the YMCA-YWCA’s Manitoba branches make up the largest child-care provider in the province. The 24 infant-care spaces, which will be added to the 88 early years and 30 school-age spaces are sorely needed downtown, NDP MLA Uzoma Asagwara said.

“Unfortunately, in recent years, we’ve seen funding for child-care centres frozen or cut, we’ve seen spaces not be developed and provided for families, which is why the announcement today is significant,” the Union Station MLA said. “Creating 24 additional spaces for infants is a big deal in our community.”

The YMCA-YWCA of Winnipeg was founded in 1879. The funds for the downtown building were raised by local businessmen in 1911. The $350,000 needed to open the building — about $10 million today — was raised in just seven days.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

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Malak Abas
Reporter

Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.

Every piece of reporting Malak produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.