Mayor: Wabash Valley ‘100% supportive’ and ‘in’ on Greencastle project

Less than a week after some discouraging words were voiced at the March Greencastle City Council meeting about the future of the proposed community center project, Mayor Bill Dory offered a fresh outlook.

Advising the Greencastle Redevelopment Commission he has had subsequent conversations with Wabash Valley YMCA officials following Council concerns over whether the proposed local YMCA project might ever become a reality, Dory said the Terre Haute organization has indicated it is “100 percent supportive and in on the project.”

Asked if there is now a YMCA timetable on how the Greencastle project might proceed -- especially in light of the site acquisition approved by the Redevelopment Commission Wednesday evening -- Dory said Wabash Valley has scheduled an April 5 board meeting at which time the Greencastle project is expected to be addressed. Trying to put starting and completion dates on the community center project at this point would be counterproductive, it was noted.

“I’d like to see how that April 5 meeting goes before we start thinking in terms of a timetable,” the mayor said.

Dory hinted that construction could begin as early as this fall if all goes well, but City Attorney Laurie Hardwick advised him even that might just be a little too optimistic at this juncture.

“So within the next 12 months we should probably start something,” Redevelopment Commission member Gary Lemon suggested.

As that suggestion was being silently pondered, commission member Lottie Barcus offered, “We do own the land ...”

That comment alluded to the 73.26 acres of property east of the Walmart store that is being acquired from the Ballard and Sturgeon families and their three trusts.

But even that didn’t reassure Lemon, who knows the YMCA project has been an idea since the 1980s and a serious consideration since at least January 2015 when the Wabash Valley YMCA said it would do a feasibility study on the possibility of expanding services into Greencastle.

“Quoting that great philosopher Yogi Berra, ‘It’s never over until it’s over,’” Lemon concluded.