Written by Wheeling Park High School’s Lucrezia Santini Web Designer. Lucrezia is a contributing writer to The Park Press.
The Wheeling YMCA, located on Lounez Ave in Elm Grove, has almost finished its second phase of renovations. After they’re done, the Wheeling community will gain an updated fitness facility that can help foster a healthier community.
The Wheeling YMCA announced the need for renovations before the 2020 pandemic. The facility needed to expand its childcare room and basketball courts to accommodate the growing number of members. Adam Shinsky, executive director of the Wheeling YMCA, told of the start of the process. “We saw what other YMCAs were doing, concerning their basketball courts and lobbies,” said Shinsky. “Once the drawing got approved, we started. [The renovations] were originally supposed to be done in one phase, but we switched to two. They started with the new playground and shelter that were opened outside. Now the second phase will be finished by the end of the month.”
The YMCA has gone through a complete makeover. The first updates unveiled were a safer lobby and new floors on the basketball court. Later, the childcare room expanded to be almost three times its original size. Recently, the new fitness center opened. The 14-month process will be finished with the opening of the second basketball court.
One of the greatest changes to the YMCA is the new fitness center. It has been moved up to the new second floor, features all new machines, and has an indoor track. The space has also expanded, so more equipment could be added.
It took a long time to get the fitness center to where it is now. The machines moved three times while the YMCA was under renovation. James Youngblood, the Wellness Director of the YMCA, told of the process of moving the center around, “We moved it over next door, over at St. Vincent’s in June,” said Youngblood. “We were over there for about six weeks. We came back over [to the YMCA] at the beginning of August. Then there was the move up here, where we had to get rid of the existing equipment, which was sold off. So, we moved around three times.”
Many challenges came with this constant movement. Youngblood explains how much patience was needed during this process. “The amount of work that actually went into all this is a lot more than just dealing with moving,” said Youngblood. “Thankfully, we had a crew that did a tremendous job at getting the stuff here. When you go through renovations like this, you’re going to have times when you see a lot fewer members flowing in and out. Hopefully, as we finish up here with the rest of the building, we start seeing those people back.”
With the New Year, many people take the calendar change to ‘start fresh’ into a healthier lifestyle. The fitness center’s goal is to provide a place where people can achieve their goals in creating a better lifestyle for themselves. “The biggest thing is that the fitness center is state-of-the-art; nobody has the equipment that we have,” said Youngblood. “It’s a New Year, getting yourself into a healthy environment is a great resolution”.
Shinsky shares Youngblood’s sentiment, upholding the goal to make Wheeling a healthier city. “Looking at the numbers in our state, they don’t look very good,” said Shinsky. “West Virginia has a great percentage of obesity in children and adults. While we cannot change the numbers for the whole state, we can try to make Wheeling the healthiest city in West Virginia.”
Youngblood also impressed how versatile the fitness opportunities are compared to other YMCAs, “There are just so many different things you can do [at the YMCA],” said Youngblood. “We have a swimming pool, basketball courts, and aerobics classes, in water and on land. So there are a bunch of different things that other places don’t offer that we do. We want to cater to all people in this area.”
Make sure to check out the new updates at the YMCA!
