Constructions crews are currently finishing up the interior of the YMCA facility connected to the Pinebridge Coliseum in Spruce Pine.
No firm date has been set for opening the facility, but it may be available to the community by the end of the summer.
The Spruce Pine YMCA will have a pool large enough to hold competitive swimming events, weightlifting areas, classrooms for a wide variety of exercise activities, and childcare spaces for parents who need someone to watch their kids while they work out.
The space will be designed to accommodate members with a wide variety of physical abilities. Trey Oakley, CEO of the YMCA in Avery County, has been overseeing the growth of the new facility.
“(One) studio will focus more on our evidence-based health intervention programs, so living with Parkinson’s, arthritis management, cancer survivorship, programs will take place in here,” Oakley said. “And then our higher energy classes will be in the other group exercise room.”
The facility will offer individual memberships, group memberships, and day passes for those who are not ready to commit to a membership option. There are also programs to help those in need
access membership if they can’t afford it on their own.
Oakley said that State Sen. Ralph Hise has been instrumental in getting the YMCA funded.
“The fact that you’ve got a $15 million facility and you’re opening with zero debt speaks volumes,” Oakley said. “I mean, there was some private money came in here, too, but Ralph did the heavy lifting.”
Although the facility is not finished, the YMCA organization already has programs in operation in Mitchell County.
“We’ve got about 90 kids in after school,” said Oakley. “We probably have about 20 staff between the two schools that we’re in. We have a full-time youth development director that’s up here. We have a full-time community health worker.”
Oakley said that the regional YMCA organization has learned from building its facility in Avery and has used those lessons to inform the construction of the local facility.
“One of the things we did in Avery or that was done prior before I got there was the pool was shrank to save some money on the original construction cost, but now you can’t utilize it for any meets or any of those competitions. You can’t dive, do any of those types of things,” Oakley said. “So here we built the competition pool that you can hold swim meets.”