High Street YMCA members mourn closure, officials plan next downtown presence | Opinion
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Officials contracted High Street YMCA for student housing; members mourn loss.
- Board will weigh sale proceeds versus retaining space to sustain downtown operations.
- YMCA plans temporary relocation of programs while exploring a new downtown site.
A few weeks ago, I was headed to a yoga class in the basement of the High Street YMCA when I heard a strange squelching noise.
I looked down. It had rained the night before, and once again, the carpet was swamped with water. We held our class in the dry, wood-floored exercise space, then squelched out when it was over.
So when the YMCA officials announced the building was under contract to a student housing developer, and would be torn down, it was not much of a surprise. The 65-year-old High Street building is held together with Band-Aids and sealing wax — and buckets and fans — so everyone had known change was nigh.
That didn’t make the announcement any easier for members to hear. Full disclosure, I’m part of the High Street cult, a group of people willing to put up with substandard facilities because of the wonderful aura around Lexington’s first and oldest YMCA facility.
Sure, the Beaumont, Northside, and Whitaker YMCAs are more spacious, more luxurious, have more classes and rooms, offer fancier equipment. But High Street has a feeling of community you get from a group of people who’ve been coming to work out together at the same time every week for decades, who remember when people actually lived in low-income apartments on the upper floors.
Other YMCAs don’t have the Jump Start program — every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 6 a.m. — which has been going for 26 years thanks to stalwart members like the late Isabel Yates and Virginia Bell, who kept coming well into their 90s.
Young people love the Y, as well. Think how many children learned to swim in the green light of the subterranean pool space overlooking Vine Street, or the steady stream of UK and high school students clanking barbells in the frankly grungy weight room upstairs.
“It just feels good here,” said Debbie Dean, who’s been teaching Jump Start for those 26 years, along with all her other duties. “You make friends and it feels good.”
That’s why the closure feels so sad to High Street’s 1,800 members. As one of my friends texted after she heard the news: “I feel abandoned.”
What comes next?
Paula Anderson, president and CEO of the YMCA of Central Kentucky, has been hearing from us. A lot.
“People are working through their grief, and I understand,” she said.
First off, High Street will stay open until March or April of 2026 under the contract with Trammell Webb, the Florida-based developer.
The YMCA of Central Kentucky board will meet later this month to discuss options: should they hold on to part of the property and keep some kind of YMCA facility alongside the new apartment building? Should they take the proceeds and build something new?
The board has been talking about High Street for years, and it would be more expensive to renovate than to tear down and start over.
Plus, as much as we all like the convenience of High Street’s parking lot next to the building, it’s the worst use of land in its prime downtown setting. Lexington needs dense housing to alleviate the housing shortage and make room for UK’s growth.
Anderson said she would like to see a new Y that’s close to downtown but would allow more room to grow, maybe in the East End.
“The High Street area is rapidly changing — if we stay, can we grow?” she asked. “I want us to grow, so more young families can join. We can stay and be what we are now, or we could leverage this property toward a new space that would be accessible to more people.”
Many people are interested in all these unknowns. Mayor Linda Gorton is meeting with Y officials on Thursday, so maybe she has some ideas.
Rock Daniels, a local business owner who ran for Council, thinks the city and the Y should join forces at the former Henry Clay High School/Central Office building on Richmond Road to build a new City Hall/YMCA with a shared parking garage, retail space etc.
There’s also lots of green space near the Charles Young Center or behind William Wells Brown Elementary.
Lots more discussion to come. In the meantime, Anderson said, Y staff will be figuring out how to keep classes like Jump Start together in new locations until there’s a new home.
“It’s not the building. It’s the people,” Anderson said. “It’s the community people have found and grown there. It’s not whether they get a treadmill. It’s how they treat one another — they have found each other and supported each other all these years. We want to keep them together.
“I like to think we can still find a path to serve the downtown community in a new facility, looking ahead to the next 60 years.”
This story was originally published October 8, 2025 at 11:28 AM.
