Chatham Park Check-in: The YMCA at Chatham Park

The Chatham Park Check-In continues with the next series of interviews, hosted by Preston Development Executive Vice President Vanessa Jenkins!

Join in on a conversation on the new YMCA at Chatham Park with chief engineer Chuck Smith, landscape architect Kurt Pfeifer of Withers Ravenel and YMCA administrator Forrest Perry.

“From the third grade on, I was involved with the Y with a bunch of kids and [it] really changed our lives,” Smith said. “It’s creating community and shaping lives. And so that’s why we’ve always felt like having this partnership between Preston and the YMCA has been a good thing.”

Perry, who has been working with YMCAs most of his adult life added, “I love working with the Y and the impact that we make on the community. The YMCA of the Triangle specifically has a seven-county service area here in North Carolina.”

The YMCA at Chatham Park will be located in the village center of the North Village “where you’ll have all kinds of uses between, say, a YMCA or amenity, a public park, commercial office, and all different types of residential,” according to Pfeiffer.

“As with many things in our society, COVID has given us the opportunity to learn and do things better,” said Smith. “When COVID came along, what happened? All the fitness centers were closing down. Nobody can go into these spaces. So, you saw people out in their driveways and their garages exercising, and they found, they liked to be outdoors while they’re exercising. When we’re beginning the design of this facility, we like to say that this is the first post-COVID designed YMCA because it was an opportunity.

“And so some of those exercise rooms that might have just had glass on two sides and a door going into them, you get to open up some of these spaces and roll out into the terrace outside, growing that space and having the outdoor opportunity for exercise.”

“Aquatics programming is a very costly endeavor, and it’s a very important endeavor,” Perry said. “So, whereas facilities may have previously been built with an indoor pool and an outdoor pool and your outdoor pool sat empty nine months out of the year, the ability to create a singular pool footprint that can be outdoors with the doors open when the weather’s nice, then can be fully enclosed and weatherized when that’s needed as well. What the pandemic taught us was the importance of being flexible in how we program the Y.”

The Chatham Park YMCA is slated to open in late 2024. Click the links below to hear all eight segments about the new Chatham County!

An introduction to new YMCA coming to Chatham Park!