Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 2, 1995 TAG: 9508020060
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Harriet Lewis, YWCA executive director, said Tuesday that the organization's board of directors voted unanimously not to renew its lease on an activities building on Roanoke College's Elizabeth campus. The lease expires in October, but the YWCA will continue activities at the center until Dec. 22 and move out by Dec. 31, she said.
Letters notifying members of the closing were mailed late Monday, Lewis said.
"We have made an effort to look at a number of options, but the board has decided that it will focus and has focused - as a good business decision - its efforts on property that we own," she said. "We don't own the Salem facility. We just can't continue to expend the amount of money that we've been expending."
Lewis would not say how much money the YWCA was spending - or possibly losing.
"We have not been able to support the effort out there," she said. "I'm not at liberty to place any dollar amount."
The YWCA still intends to maintain a presence in Salem, said Ginny Allison, board president. Several sites in Salem are being considered as satellite locations for programs that have been offered at the Salem center - after-school programs, summer and holiday youth camps and its "Food for Thought" speaker series for adults.
But the organization is channeling its resources into its flagship center at First Street and Franklin Road in downtown Roanoke, built in 1925. Renovation plans are under way to make the downtown center's pool handicapped-accessible.
Last year, when some YWCA members who used the Salem center learned that the board was considering closing it, they protested, launching a petition and letter-writing campaign in a bid to encourage the board to reconsider.
At issue, primarily, was the center's heated indoor swimming pool, one of the few in the Roanoke area that is medically approved for use by arthritis patients. Many of the members who protested were frequent pool-users who swam for therapeutic purposes. Some found traveling to the downtown Roanoke center an inconvenience.
The YWCA left the closing dangling somewhat, saying that it was a possibility but that a final decision would not be made until closer to the October 1995 lease expiration. Program consolidation at the downtown center was then suggested.
Since 1985, the YWCA has leased a Roanoke College activities building across from the Salem Civic Center. Besides the indoor swimming pool, the building has a full-size gymnasium and three multipurpose rooms.
Roanoke College, notified late last week that the YWCA would not renew its lease, has no definite plans for the building, public relations director Teresa Thomas said.
"Quite some time ago, we did have preliminary conversations with other organizations," she said. "But at this point, we're unsure of their interest in the building. At the time, we didn't know what the situation was" with the YWCA.
One source, who asked not to be named, said the YMCA of Roanoke Valley and Salem officials had talked to the college about the building several months ago. The YMCA had expressed an interest in leasing the facility with Salem augmenting some of the costs, the source said.
A similar arrangement was proposed earlier this year, though it would involve Salem's building a facility and the YMCA's managing it. In March, Salem City Council appointed an advisory committee to study the feasibility of a fitness center and pool in Salem, managed by the YMCA and financed by the city.
Leasing the Roanoke College building "could operate as an interim measure until they get a municipal pool and serve the interests of the swimming public in Salem," said Bob Hunt, who has been swimming at the YWCA's Salem center for 31/2 years.
Hunt and other YWCA members formed the "YWCA Swimming Pool Task Force" last year in an effort to keep the Salem center open.
"We were doing everything we could to help the YWCA make it financially and make it stay open so the pool would be available to our members," Hunt said. "We certainly respect their decision. If they feel they can't swing it financially, I'm sorry that they'll be leaving. But we're very anxious to cooperate and help any other operator that can take it over and make it available for Salem citizens to use."
Harriet Lewis said some members who had used the Salem center pool began coming to the downtown center some months ago. She hopes others will join them.
But Liz Barber, who has been swimming at the Salem center for nearly five years, said she does not intend to travel downtown.
"All of us who have used the Salem center have sort of known the program was going to eventually not be there for us," she said. "A network of folks have been looking around for other places.
"I've spent a lot of extended time with women my age and older, women who give me a much more positive view of what it is to grow into maturity," she said. "But I'm not sure we'll see that in other places."
Agencies, businesses and civic organizations also use the center. Its pool is the only one of its kind in Salem that can be accessed by the public through membership or group affiliation.
About 30 patients from the Salem Veterans Affairs Medical Center use the pool for recreational therapy. With the Salem YWCA center closing "we'll have to find a new facility with comparable services that we can use," said Rae Campbell, the medical center's supervisor of recreation staff.
by CNB