YMCA Sudbury location called the organization's 'Achilles heel'
During Tuesday's city council meeting in Sudbury, YMCA Northeastern Ontario CEO Helen Francis said the Sudbury site is so expensive to operate, it's become the Y’s Achilles heel.
“The biggest challenge for us is it is an expensive facility," Francis said.
"It has a high utility cost, as you might imagine, and the Y particularly we still owe a certain amount on our mortgage so we have to pay significant amounts of principal and interest."
She said they are on track to lose $700,000 a year, "which is obviously not sustainable.”
The building is home to not only the YMCA, but also the Parkside Centre, Health Sciences North Outpatient Cardiac Rehab and 49 licensed childcare spaces.
“Twenty years ago, this Centre for Life came to fruition based on really two key objectives," Francis said.
"One to rejuvenate the downtown core, and two to make sure that we had accessible holistic wellness programs for the Sudbury community as a whole. Those two objectives probably are at least as true as they were 20 years ago, if not even more so, as we all try to recover and renew from what the pandemic has left for us."
Despite a recent fundraising campaign doing well, bringing in close to $2 million, Francis said those funds are not capital dollars. In the last two years, the Y has seen a $10 million decrease in membership revenue.
Since reopening, memberships are only back at 65 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.
“We’re just really trying to be proactive and we’re really optimistic that by working with partners collaborating we can have a collective impact in our community,” she said.
Francis said the presentation to council was to provide an update, and to start a bigger conversation about how the city and the Y can make the Durham Street location more sustainable.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Doctors say capital gains tax changes will jeopardize their retirement. Is that true?
The Canadian Medical Association asserts the Liberals' proposed changes to capital gains taxation will put doctors' retirement savings in jeopardy, but some financial experts insist incorporated professionals are not as doomed as they say they are.
Something in the water? Canadian family latest to spot elusive 'Loch Ness Monster'
For centuries, people have wondered what, if anything, might be lurking beneath the surface of Loch Ness in Scotland. When Canadian couple Parry Malm and Shannon Wiseman visited the Scottish highlands earlier this month with their two children, they didn’t expect to become part of the mystery.
Fair in Ontario, flurries in Labrador: Weather systems make for an erratic spring
It's no secret that spring can be a tumultuous time for Canadian weather, and as an unseasonably mild El Nino winter gives way to summer, there's bound to be a few swings in temperature that seem out of the ordinary. From Ontario to the Atlantic, though, this week is about to feel a little erratic.
What do weight loss drugs mean for a diet industry built on eating less and exercising more?
Recent injected drugs like Wegovy and its predecessor, the diabetes medication Ozempic, are reshaping the health and fitness industries.
He replaced Mickey Mantle. Now baseball's oldest living major leaguer is turning 100
The oldest living former major leaguer, Art Schallock turns 100 on Thursday and is being celebrated in the Bay Area and beyond as the milestone approaches.
What a urologist wants you to know about male infertility
When opposite sex couples are trying and failing to get pregnant, the attention often focuses on the woman. That’s not always the case.
'It was instant karma': Viral video captures failed theft attempt in Nanaimo, B.C.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.