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Expanded Fitness, Early Learning Centers Completed at YMCA

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September 3, 2015

| by Rick Pezzullo |

Youngsters in the YMCA’s Early Learning Center will enjoy more space to learn and play; all new equipment is enjoyed by members in spacious fitness center in former gymnasium. — The YMCA’s Early Learning Center is back on Main Street after a three-year run in the Tappan Hill School.

The Family YMCA at Tarrytown has gotten a facelift in recent months to complement its growing fitness and early learning programs, and even more changes are planned in the near future.

“This is very focused, very efficient,” said Barbara Turk, the Y’s Vice President of Marketing and Community Development. “We’re only doing what we can afford. We’ve always been community supported.”

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Since June, the Y has raised about $150,000 of its capital fund goal of $350,000 for the Main Street facility’s first major renovations since 1998. The estimated cost for all the slated changes is approximately $600,000.

Last year, the Y did a utilization study of the 103-year-old building and determined several areas were being underutilized by its approximately 4,000 members, including the gymnasium and racquetball courts. As a result, the former gymnasium was transformed into an enhanced 3,500-square-foot Fitness and Strength Training Center, including new equipment, added cardio machines and a Pilates Reformer studio.

The fitness center is more than twice the size of the former workout space, but eliminating the gymnasium wasn’t an easy decision, according to Turk.

“It was very challenging. It was very difficult,” Turk said, noting it was still being determined where the Y’s youth basketball program, which served 50 to 100 youngsters, would wind up. One option being discussed is merging with Tarrytown’s recreation hoops program.

The Y’s adult basketball and volleyball programs have relocated to the EF International School facilities without a hitch.

The former racquetball courts will be turned into a spinning and dance studio, with classes scheduled to start in September.

Already successfully completed is the relocation of the Y’s Early Learning Center from Tappan Hill School after the Y learned late last year that the Tarrytown School District would not renew its lease, but instead would be renting the school to BOCES, a state educational program.

While at Tappan Hill for three years, Turk said the Y program grew more than 50%, so it decided to dedicate three times the space on Main Street to accommodate more children.

“We didn’t want to lose that. We wanted to build on that momentum,” she said. “We have room to continue to grow.”

The Y took its former member lounge and Pilates and yoga studios and built two infant rooms, two toddler rooms, two preschool rooms, two flexible rooms, a multipurpose room and a library for its Early Learning Center.

Nicole Bernardone, the Y’s Early Learning Center director, said 67 children, ages six weeks to five years old, are currently enrolled in the center, which has a capacity to hold 106. One of the program’s unique services offered is swimming in the Y’s indoor pool.

Bernardone said it was great to be back in the center of Tarrytown. “We are so excited to be back in the community. That was something that we missed greatly,” she said, noting the children enjoyed taking walking trips to places in the village. “We missed a lot of that being up on the hill.”

Turk said the Y was currently seeking grants for an outdoor learning and play area on the south side of the building. Those plans, which include a garden, a stage/sandbox, block/building play and water play, are projected to cost between $50,000 and $100,000.

“We’re not looking for members or the community to pay for it all,” Turk stressed. “The community has always rallied around us.”

Anyone interested in learning more about the programs or renovations plans at the Family YMCA at Tarrytown or how to make a donation can visit www.ymcatarrytown.org or call (914) 631-4807.

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