Plans delayed for skyscrapers over downtown Durham YMCA
The downtown Durham YMCA will remain open at least another year, after again delaying plans to build skyscrapers on the site.
The project is two years behind schedule, with plans to break ground now pushed to 2024.
Last year, YMCA of the Triangle revealed plans to replace the gym at West Morgan and Foster streets with a brand new YMCA supporting two towers: one 27 stories and the other 12 stories.
The taller building would contain 299 apartments; the shorter one, offices. They’d be connected underneath by the new YMCA, a parking garage with over 600 spaces and some shops.
A new Y
The new Y will be a “state-of-the-art facility” with two pools, an indoor track, a two-court gym and — as members have been requesting for years (especially since 2017, when the city began charging for street parking) — plentiful parking.
The downtown location, open for more than 25 years, is Durham’s busiest YMCA.
“I feel like I see people from all walks of life — across age and race and gender, and ability as well,” said Rebecca Ward, a member for five years.
It’s not the fanciest or the newest gym in town, but it has everything she needs.
“Driving to the gym, especially after work, is a little bit hectic because parking is so crazy, but I do enjoy going,” Ward said. “Walking in, everybody is very warm.”
Durham has three other YMCAs, though the only indoor pool is located downtown. There are 19 YMCA locations across the Triangle.
Saleem Reshamwala and his family joined about five years ago. His wife and their two kids swim, he likes to lift weights, and the kids get casual basketball lessons from a friend.
“Being downtown, for me, makes it such an easy part of my routine,” Reshamwala said.
Walk to the Durham Hotel; spend $4 on espresso; write, draw and feel luxurious. Work at the Main Library. Take meetings downtown. Walk to the YMCA as a warm-up for a workout in the gym. Reshamwala said it all adds up to an affordable, walkable and pleasant day.
“I’m greeted by fun, energetic people when I walk in the door,” he said. “I’m not really sure what the heck I’m going to do when they close.”
But he’s not too worried either. There’s been a lot of uncertainty in the past few years. Things have a way of working themselves out.
A new vision
YMCA of the Triangle began searching for a developer to rework the site in 2018, but said the pandemic slowed progress. They announced in early 2022 that Chapel Hill’s East West Partners would handle the project.
Early on, the plans were to shut the branch down in late 2022.
An email went out in January that told members the closure would instead happen at the end of 2023.
“Due to market shifts, YMCA leaders, volunteers and our partners have decided to slow the pace of the project to better match economic conditions,” the branch’s executive director Laura Ferguson wrote at the time.
Six months later, the YMCA now says they anticipate closing in 2024.
“We are fully committed to rebuilding the existing Y,” Ferguson assured members in an email.
The site plan was approved in May 2023 and is null after four years if there are no active building permits.
The plan is to demolish the existing facility, with construction on the new development projected to take two to three years.
East West Partners and the Y did not disclose the financial terms of their agreement, which includes a 99-year ground lease on the YMCA-owned land.
The Y has raised more than $7 million in donations, having estimated last year its costs would exceed $23 million. The total cost will be much higher, though East West Partners declined to share the details.
27 the magic number
The 27-story tower would be a striking addition to Durham’s skyline.
Durham has one other building that height — One City Center — and another under construction, The Novus.
There’s a reason Durham’s skyscrapers top out at 27 floors.
It’s about the limit that modern builders can fit under the downtown core’s 300-foot height limit. Builders must seek a variance if they wish to go taller.
“We might have been able to go one story higher, but we were kind of limited by what we could park,” Ben Perry said in an interview last year. Perry is a senior managing partner at East West.
“This is ample amount of room, at this point in time, for us to do what we’re doing,” Jane Hills, whose company Austin Lawrence Partners is behind Durham’s first two 27-story towers, said in an interview for the same story.
“Will there be something taller in Durham? That’s certainly possible,” Hills continued. “I mean, Raleigh has kind of gone to a whole other level.”
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