Baker Youth Club will purchase the old YMCA property on Smith Street, the club’s directors announced Tuesday. The deal, which will see the club renovate and move into the property at 1401 E. Smith St., has been in the works for over a year, the announcement notes. The YMCA broke ground for its new facility, called the Parkview Warsaw YMCA, in January, and both organizations announced in March that the buy was being negotiated. The club’s new location will be called “Lichtenwalter Center – Home of Baker Youth Club,” in honor of former Director Robert “Coach” Lichtenwalter. Program growth in the past few years prompted the youth club to start eying the older but larger facility, according to Executive Director Tracy Furnivall. The club was averaging 70 to 80 kids a night in 2011, but is now seeing around 120. “BYC is extremely excited about the growth of our programs over the last five years,” he said in the announcement. BYC Program Director Tamara Drake attributed the numbers to the transportation they provide for up to 100 kids daily and the academic support for around 70 kids a day, as well as free snacks. At 45,000 square feet, the YMCA building will give BYC three times the space, though the tradeoff is that it’s about 40 years older than the club’s current building at 765 W. Market St. The club will put the proceeds from the sale of its facility into buying and extensively renovating the Y. Renovations will include filling in both pools to create an activity room, opening up sightlines for better supervision of the kids, upgrading security and creating areas that will seperate grade school from middle and high school students. The work will also be supported by a matching grant from the Dekko Foundation. “It’s hard to believe and sad to think about selling what this community built for the kids, BYC and Robert ‘Coach’ Lichtenwalter, but the reality is we cannot be as effective in the limited space we are in,” Furnivall said.
