When the YMCA began planning to replace its busy but aging Southdale branch in Edina, it looked to an unusual partner: a group that wants to build affordable housing aimed in part at people with multiple sclerosis (MS).
The YMCA's proposal for a new 73,000-square-foot center is moving through Edina City Hall now, along with a planned companion building with 130 apartments that would be both affordable and accessible to people with physical disabilities.
"When the 'Y' wanted to bring housing back into their strategic vision, they naturally thought of us," said Deb Sakry Lande, director of community relations for CommonBond Communities based in St. Paul. "They said, 'We've got the land, you guys do housing, well, we can partner.'"
Preliminary redevelopment plans for the YMCA's existing site at 7355 York Av. S. were approved last month by the city's Planning Commission. The City Council will hold a public hearing on those plans on Tuesday.
The Edina YMCA is one of the state's busiest, with more than 14,000 members and equal numbers of nonmembers who use the facility, said Harold Mezile, president and CEO of the YMCA of Metropolitan Minneapolis. But the 1970s-era building is dated and inefficient, he said. Though a new building would be only 3,000 square feet bigger, more efficient use of space means the YMCA would be able to run 20 percent more programming there.
Instead of the one large pool and small therapy pool that exist now, the new $16 million building would have a pool for lap swimming and a second one that could be used for lessons and by children, Mezile said. Plans also include a larger gym and aerobic areas.
But the innovative part of the project is the partnership with CommonBond, a nonprofit that since 1971 has developed and managed affordable housing in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin. The group already has three developments in Edina, which Lande described as a city that has been receptive to its projects. Two of those developments -- Summit Point and South Haven -- are aimed at seniors. The other, the 90-unit Yorkdale Townhomes, stands next door to the YMCA.
In the past, some neighbors have complained about what they said were crime problems at the Yorkdale complex. At the hearing last month, Edina city officials presented the Planning Commission with statistics from the Police Department that showed police calls to the complex had decreased from about 100 calls in 2002 to about 50 in 2007.