| Officials with the YMCA of Tacoma-Pierce County expected a high interest in the Gig Harbor Y facility once it opened last August. But they weren’t prepared for this much, this soon. The facility has nearly doubled its goal for membership to date, has nearly double the number of classes it expected to offer, and has nearly double the number of employees it planned to hire at the present time.
“We are doing things we planned to do next year, or the following year,” says Executive Director Darcy Celletti.
Celletti said the goal was to have 9,800 members several months after opening, and as of mid-December that number was at 15,700. Most members are from the Gig Harbor area, but a high number of people are coming from the nearby Key Peninsula as well as from Port Orchard and Olalla.
To answer the high demand for parking, the nonprofit organization decided to expand its parking much sooner than planned. In the spring, as the weather permits, another 140 parking stalls will be added to the current 312 spaces (construction is expected to last about 60 days). More pieces of cardio and strength equipment were added, as well as an additional number of classes for a total 200 a week (which Celletti says is “a lot” compared to other facilities).
Following the high demand for the facility, some Gig Harbor gyms have stepped up membership drive efforts, advertising “plenty of parking” and special membership fees. But Celletti says the Y has lost very few members, and the utilization at the Gig Harbor branch is higher than average. “Not only do we have more members but they’re utilizing (the facility) more often,” she says. “It really demonstrates this is what the community wanted. They say, ‘If you build it, they will come ’— and they came.”
Celletti says one aspect that makes the YMCA different is its nonprofit, mission-based status. Scholarships are offered for families based not just on income but on individual situations such as bills and other commitments. “We don’t turn anyone away,” she says. “We’re committed to having everybody here… and we take their situation into account.”
Encouraged by the success of the Gig Harbor Y, as well as by Kitsap area surveys, a group of Kitsap County leaders is revisiting the idea of building a second facility in Kitsap as well. Currently, Kitsap YMCA has one location, in Bremerton, but there have been discussions over the years about building another Y in Silverdale, and possibly later in Port Orchard. A 12-acre site owned by the county in the area of NW Randall Way and NW Bucklin Hill Road is being considered as a possibility, and officials with Kitsap County Consolidated Housing Authority and the Kitsap Family YMCA are examining the results of the most recent feasibility study.
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