St. Ignatius to buy Duncan YMCA 

By Susan S. Stevens

St. Ignatius College Prep is buying Duncan YMCA, officials of the YMCA and the nearby Catholic high school say, with St. Ignatius hoping to maintain the Y’s open space and service to the community.

YMCA leaders decided to sell Duncan due to decreasing numbers of neighborhood children using its recreational and social services since gentrification began in the area, said Stephen S. Cole, president and CEO of the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago, in an exclusive interview with the Gazette.

“We tried everything for two and a half years to attract children in that community,” Cole said, speculating that either new residents do not have many children or just are not interested in what the Y offers.

Duncan, at 1001 W. Roosevelt Rd., served many children living in the ABLA and Henry Horner housing projects. Both projects are almost gone because of redevelopment on the Near West Side.

An appraisal valued the four-acre facility at $12.4 million, although the YMCA is selling it for “significantly less,” Cole said. He would not disclose the sale price.

John Chandler, who heads operations and development at St. Ignatius, said negotiations had not been completed, but “we are both very committed” and “we are very close.”

 “We had been very good friends with our neighbors at St. Ignatius," Cole noted. They said, ‘Call if you ever want to sell.’ So we have called St. Ignatius.”

Chandler, too, spoke of a more than 20-year relationship between the two institutions that has “grown stronger.”

Cole and Chandler expected the sale to be complete before the end of the year.

Y officials put no restrictions on property use in negotiating the sale, Cole said.
           
No housing development
“We are hoping to preserve open space and programming in the community,” Chandler said. “We do not know what all the details will be or all the programs will be.” He acknowledged a major concern that housing developers not turn the Y’s acreage into “another slam-bam high-end project,” Chandler said.

Cole doubted the school would continue the Chernin Center for the Performing Arts because it has its own McLaughlin Theater. “It’s much nicer than ours,” Cole said. Chandler does not know the future of the center at this time.

Since the close of Summer Safari summer camp, facilities rentals are the only remaining events at Duncan, said John Byrnes, the Y's operations manager, as he oversaw a group of schoolchildren bused to the Y to view a performance in the Chernin Center.

Duncan had not had a daycare program for years, Byrnes added. Its spring after-school program had about 35 children.

Y staffers are directing Duncan’s members to the Rauner YMCA at 2700 S. Western Ave. Nevertheless, “We are going to continue to have a presence within the gentrified neighborhood,” Cole said. “We leave buildings, not neighborhoods.” He vowed to serve the approximately 900 ABLA families who will move into the Roosevelt Square development.

YMCA officials were exploring how to preserve the teen theater somewhere, but not at Duncan. The only participants last year were students from outside the area.

Duncan's eight staff members will be offered jobs with other Ys, Cole and Byrnes said.

Duncan is one of four YMCAs being sold. The list includes New City at 1515 N. Halsted St.; the names of the other two have not been made public yet.

Like Duncan, New City lost its mission when a housing project was torn down¾in that case, Cabrini-Green. The purchaser, a developer, is required to make one-third of the new housing available to low-income people.
 
New Y for Bronzeville?
As the YMCA closes facilities whose time has come and gone, it is considering construction where its mission will be fulfilled. One new site could be in or near Bronzeville on the South Side, Cole said. Area residents offered to raise funds for the Y, which also would serve Englewood residents. The Y is leasing from the Chicago Archdiocese a long-closed community center with an indoor basketball court at Chicago Avenue and Hamlin Street on the West Side, another community with potential for future Y construction.

YMCA officials also want to open more after-school programs within school buildings. While current programs operate at more than 100 locations including four schools on the West and Southwest sides, Cole’s goal is to have programs from 3 to 6 p.m. in all 600 Chicago Public Schools in ten years.

“We have to raise some money,” he said. "It will cost $2,500 per student per year."

Cole emphasized the YMCA is “more than gym and swim” for children. It is the largest provider of single room occupancy housing in Chicago, offering social services so residents can move out and up. “We don’t want to just provide warehousing,” he said.

The Y also is the largest welfare-to-job trainer in the city and is expanding substance abuse counseling. In addition, “We take care of 1,000 shut-ins on the South Side,” he noted.

The Y fights gangs, too. Y employee Kenny Ruiz “is the Henry Kissinger of gang warfare,” arbitrating peace between rival gangs, Cole said. “He is saving lives. We take the risk because our mission is more important than the risk.”