We have been working hard on the plans for our relaunch -- a $7.5 million redesign of the West End YMCA. The improvements will help us better serve our members and community.

Invest in your community and donate to the West End Relaunch Capital Campaign.

Review our new winter program schedule (PDF 753KB). 

May 2, 2008

Dear members, volunteers and staff,

We have been busy working with our construction team planning the transition to the next phase over the coming weeks. Our key requirements are to allow for our members to successfully use the West End facility and also to facilitate productive reconstruction of the remaining areas.  Our staff and partners are excited to enter this final phase as we are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel; however, this phase will no doubt be quite arduous for staff, members and volunteers alike as much of this phase deals with high traffic and common areas. Areas under construction in this coming phase include our lobby, women and girl’s locker area, lower conditioning room and community room. We will also be building a brand new Cyclefit Studio during this phase.  

In order to present the details of this coming phase with complete clarity, we will list each area individually:

Lower Conditioning Area and Community Room
(1st section, Final Phase)

Construction in our upper conditioning area is nearing completion. We anticipate having this area by next weekend which will allow us to transition the space back to member use during the week of May 12th. Immediately after we are granted access to this space our moving team will begin the transporting equipment to our upper conditioning room space. While our lower conditioning room is under construction, members will have the option of using either of our two conditioning areas on the 4th floor. 

We will be transitioning our community room programs to the large, high-ceiling northern room (where our play structure will eventually be positioned) upon completion of our child and family play area, also planned for handover next weekend. As above, our child and family play area will be transitioned to membership usage during the week of May 12th. We will be creating a temporary storage for our Tae Kwon Do and school age programs that will be operating out of this temporary community room.  
 

Lobby
(Including café area, membership area and pool viewing area)

During the week of May 12th, we will begin relocating the main entrance of the building to the North side along College Street. We will construct a temporary scanning station adjacent to the front door to grant access to the building. Upon entering the facility, members will use the new northeast stairwell as the main artery of the building. All functional areas of the facility can be accessed using this stairwell. To all childcare parents, Child care Director Sandra Luis will provide a detailed update concerning entry on Monday of this upcoming week.

Our membership sales area will be relocated to the North corner of the building, adjacent to the northeast stairwell. We are currently working with IT to configure the area in preparation for the transition.

The cafe or pool viewing areas will be renovated during this next phase, and no pool viewing off the deck is possible. We are currently weighing 2 options in regards to the relocation of our cafeteria. Our final decision will be communicated in next week’s update and will be based on both traffic flow, City Official input, as well as what is deemed the most appropriate social space.

Access to our elevator will continue to be available throughout this phase. Members who are in absolute need of elevator use will be guided through a separate entrance along College Street. We plan on installing hoarding from the entrance to the elevator to ensure member safety.

Temporary Women’s Locker Area and Family Staging Area

Construction in our women’s and girls’ locker area will begin upon the completion of our men’s locker area. Our men’s locker area is slated to be completed near the weekend of the 17/18th. At this time our female members will move into our current family locker area and our families will move into our child and family play area which will be used as a family staging area. We are currently in the midst of planning the conversion of both areas to meet all members’ needs

Our temporary women’s locker area has no steam room, sauna or whirl pool. The area is equipped with 6 showers, 2 blow dryers and 2 vanity areas. There is currently one existing washroom stall and we will be adding one more in place of 2 existing urinals. We are making this change in response to member and staff feedback. We will also be adding an additional 10 lockers to the existing 51, creating a total of 61 lockers. We realize that this will not be enough lockers to satisfy members’ needs during peak times. To help ease these busy times, we plan to add extra lockers in our family staging area for female members to use.

We will begin posting signs in the coming weeks that show the temporary locations of the program spaces.  We will also update our directional signage to minimize any confusion.

Again, we can't thank you enough for understanding during this time. As always, we welcome your feedback.

Sincerely,

Adam Thrasher
Volunteerism and Communications
West End YMCA
Tel: 416-536-1166 ext. 413
Adam.Thrasher@ymcagta.org

Sarah Devorah Beldick
Membership & Philanthropy
West End YMCA of Greater Toronto
Tel: 416-536-1166 ext.436
Sarah.Beldick@ymcagta.org