Dignitaries take part in the ceremonial ribbon-cutting on Friday morning (Lethbridge News Now)

By Justin Goulet

Cor Van Raay YMCA

Grand opening held for new YMCA

Jun 14, 2019 | 12:25 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – Dignitaries gathered together Friday morning to celebrate the grand opening of the new Cor Van Raay YMCA in west Lethbridge.

Attendees included the likes of MLAs Shannon Phillips and Nathan Neudorf, Lethbridge Mayor Chris Spearman, YMCA of Lethbridge Board Chair Stephen Mogdan and Cor Van Raay, whose hefty monetary donation helped make the recreational facility a reality.

Mogdan said since the facility held its soft launch opening on May 4, attendance has been strong.

“It’s been such a long journey to get here. Even when we opened with the soft opening in early May, we didn’t know exactly how it was going to go,” he said.

“Over these past five weeks, we’ve been really encouraged by the response. The community has really come out and supported it (the facility) and we’re just pleased to celebrate that fact today.”

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Mogdan noted that the YMCA’s expectations were surpassed when it comes to membership sign-up and drop-in visitors.

“We had a yearly target for our first year, and we’ve already exceeded that in the first five weeks of being open. Aside from that, there’s been a ton of drop-ins. You come here on a weekend, and you see an amazing lineup of people waiting to get into the facility.”

Staff has seen more than 65,000 visitors over the past few weeks and there are around 5,300 members.

As far as staffing transitions have gone from the former downtown YMCA location to the new site, Mogdan said that’s gone smoothly.

“We’ve had to bring on so many more staff to deal with this size of an operation, so a lot of them are new so a lot of them don’t have that frame of reference of the old facility compared to the new facility,” he said.

“Our CEO, Jennifer Petracek-Kolb is really a fantastic CEO and she’s done a great job managing. We have a general manager, and managers for aquatics and fitness and all that stuff, so the team has done a really fantastic job. I think everything’s been going well with the employees.”

The new facility features a state-of-the-art aquatics centre, a fitness centre and many more amenities.

The event also featured live music, a ribbon-cutting, cake courtesy of ATB Financial and a pick-up basketball game between the officials in attendance.

Attendees start a pick-up game on one of the facility’s many basketball courts (Lethbridge News Now)

The Cor Van Raay YMCA at ATB Centre is open Mondays through Fridays from 5:00 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. (pool and fitness floor close at 10:00 p.m.), Saturdays and Sundays from 8:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. (pool and fitness floor close at 8:00 p.m.) and on statutory holidays from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

For more details on the facility, visit https://lethbridgeymca.ca/branch/cor-van-raay/.