Local community center possibility 'still moving'

Friday, November 27, 2015

While there wasn't much to report on the possibility of a community center for Greencastle and Putnam County, the little news city officials did share seemed to be on the positive side.

At least that's how it was interpreted for the Greencastle Redevelopment Commission earlier this week.

"It's still moving," Mayor Sue Murray told the commission.

While no formal recommendation has been received yet from the national YMCA board that reportedly met Nov. 19 to mull over the possibility of the Wabash Valley YMCA staffing and operating a facility in Greencastle that would be built with Greencastle Redevelopment Commission-controlled funds, city officials took solace in one interesting detail.

Wabash Valley YMCA CEO Deborah Plummer Ringo sent a packet of sample contracts to the city, Murray told the commission, saying city officials see that potentially as a "positive sign."

City officials are expected to sit down with Wabash Valley YMCA representatives in the very near future to go over the possibilities.

The YMCA folks are expected not only to make a site recommendation for a community center but to also offer a building footprint commensurate with what the local community should be able to afford, Mayor Murray said.

If a favorable recommendation does come down from the YMCA's national board, the proposal would still need to go before the Redevelopment Commission and the City Council.

"They take very measured steps," the mayor said earlier of the YMCA group. "It's a work in progress and we'll continue to have dialogue and discussion and hopefully move toward a positive outcome for our community."

Nonetheless, city officials are "really grateful" the YMCA national board chose to take a look at the prospects of a community center, the mayor said recently.

"One thing we know," Murray added in her Nov. 10 report to the City Council, "is we can't afford to run the program. We don't have funds like that in Mr. (Rod) Weinschenk's Park Department budget."

So while the possibility of a community center is still in limbo, the city's Stellar Grant projects are beginning to wind down.

"The facades are moving along as you all can see," Mayor Murray told the commission, alluding to the preponderance of scissor lifts working in the downtown.

"They'll work until they can't work any more," she said as the winter weather factor looms.

The state, meanwhile, will look again at the proposal downtown loft apartments project that is part of Stellar, she said, while the People Pathways trail expansion that is a "quasi-Stellar project" is just getting off the ground.

"Other than that," Mayor Murray said, "the Stellar project is kind of wrapped up. Hallelujah!"

The brief Redevelopment meeting, less than 15 minutes in all, was attended by commission voting members Erika Gilmore, Drew Brattain, Gwen Morris, Gary Lemon and Tanis Monday along with Mayor Murray, ex-officio member Denise Sigworth and Greencastle/Putnam County Development Center Director and Mayor-elect Bill Dory.

The commission's next meeting date was moved up one day to Tuesday, Dec. 22 at 5:30 p.m. due to the Christmas holiday.

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  • Could the old Marsh building work for this project?????

    -- Posted by GRNT on Mon, Nov 30, 2015, at 8:09 AM
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