Donor denounces YMCA land sale plan

On June 2, the Goldsboro City Council approved a conditional zoning request that will allow for the construction of Heritage Downs — a sprawling, nearly 50-acre residential development that will see roughly 150 homes constructed on land located off South Harding Drive.

For members of the board, the project will address housing needs and increase the city’s tax base — a win for a growing community rife with economic development.

But for a handful of people sitting in the back of the council chambers that evening, the affirmative vote meant much more.

It was, in their view, the Hail Mary the flailing Goldsboro Family YMCA had been hoping for — a pathway to avoid financial ruin and the very real threat of having to shutter the decades-old institution for good.

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Sitting in his office inside the YMCA, CEO Mark Pritchett confirmed a number of facts provided to New Old North over the last year by current and former staff, current and former members, and current and former board members.

The YMCA had, indeed, been operating at a loss for several years.

The organization had not had a formal budget during much of that time.

Members of the organization’s executive board had, in fact, floated the YMCA more than $300,000 for payroll and other expenses.

And, perhaps most importantly, had the City Council not approved the zoning request, the outlook for the near future of what has been a Wayne County institution for more than 40 years would have been dire.

But would it have folded?

“On paper, yes,” Pritchett told New Old North. “I don’t think it’s overdramatizing to say that.”

Still, when he woke up the morning of the meeting, he had “faith” that even had the council voted against the measure, a miracle would have happened and saved the facility.

“I don’t mean to be philosophical, but I went, ‘You know what God, we’re here for a reason and a purpose. And even if they do not do this, I believe you brought me here for a reason, and I believe this YMCA is going to survive. Somehow. I don’t know how it’s going to happen, but it’s gonna happen,’” Pritchett said.

But how did the Goldsboro Family YMCA get to this point?

How could it have ever reached the financial brink?

“There’s no way to operate with half the revenue from 2018 when you went from 12,000 members to 6,000 members,” Pritchett said, citing the COVID-19 pandemic and the opening of new gyms in Wayne County as reasons for the dramatic membership decline. “Well, we continued to operate with those expenses — with half the revenue, and again, with no fundraising. If fundraising is a third leg of a three-legged stool that the YMCA stands on, and you don’t do fundraising for 8 to 10 years, it’s not going to take long before you realize you’re in trouble.”

Add to that the fact that the Y was “paying for financial assistance” — everything from memberships for those who could not afford them to its mobile market — out of its operations account.

And all the while, Pritchett said, “very little” strategic work had been done.

In other words, nobody was thinking about the future of an aging facility.

“The first time I toured this facility, I went, ‘That’s a nice building. That’s 110,000 square feet of facility. They don’t build Ys this big anymore. It’s crazy. And to look at it and the design of it, and that pool, and the other pool, and the gym, and all of the stuff this facility had at one time, I would say that they had a facility that they could certainly say, ‘Man, look at this crown jewel right here,’” Pritchett said. “But if the infrastructure’s not put in place, if the preventive maintenance is not put in place to sustain that right there, it’s just waiting to fail because all of these things have a life cycle. And when you’ve got 20-year-old HVAC units on the roof, you’ve got a flat roof that’s leaking, you’ve got all of the issues and problems with the facility, it’s just a matter of time before it’s gone. It’s not sustainable under the old model anymore.”

A May 18 Wayne Week editorial discussed a plan that sources from across the community were concocting to save the Y.

A public-private partnership, they said, was the only real solution — even if a $2 million-plus land deal gave the organization some breathing room.

There was, they said — and Pritchett confirmed — between $5 million and $7 million in capital expenses necessary to shore up the building.

And without an increase in membership or a decrease in services, the organization would continue to operate at a loss and chip away at the money that would be left after the land sale once the board members who floated the Y were made whole.

Pritchett is on board with the idea of a partnership.

“It gives everybody skin in the game. Right now, the Air Force base uses this facility to train in; the school system uses it for swim meets; the county uses it for training for the dive team. Everybody uses this facility,” he said. “But nobody pays for any of that. And I don’t want to say, ‘Hey, you know what? No pay, no play.’ That’s crazy, because our community, this is an asset for our community. … So, let’s think about it like Wilson’s public-private partnership with the hospital, with the school system, with the YMCA, with any other entities that are part of that right there. Everybody pays. Imagine.”

If not, he can imagine the end result.

“I do want to have a meeting with city and county leaders to say, ‘Can you include this aquatic center, or this facility as a part of the budget?’” he said. “Because no one’s paying for this right here, and the YMCA’s membership cannot sustain this right here. It’s not possible.”

Pritchett hopes that now that the City Council has opened the door for construction of Heritage Downs — on the nearly 50-acre lot off South Harding Drive currently owned by the Y — the $2 million-plus land deal will be closed by October.

And with the time that windfall will buy the organization, he intends to welcome any and everyone to the table should local government bodies embrace the public-private partnership many of their members have advocated for behind the scenes.

But not everyone is happy about the prospect of a sprawling residential development being constructed on that land.

For Dr. Jim Atkins, a Wayne County icon who founded the Southeastern Medical Oncology Center, it’s a “slap in the face.”

To understand why, it is necessary to turn back the clock 30 years to 1995 — when, according to the Goldsboro Family YMCA’s own website, the organization was “given a promissory note” for the land that will soon house Heritage Downs.

Atkins told New Old North the idea for the donation was a collective one — that he and his ex-wife, Sandra Glasgow, offered to, in the future, give the parcel to the Y for use as a sports complex.

“My wife and I had bought that property with the intent being that it would go to the Y so that they could build a sports complex to allow soccer and baseball. And when we sat down and talked with them, that was the plan,” Atkins said. “The whole goal was to allow the children of Wayne County to have more opportunities for sports, as my son had played soccer. And also, the goal was to allow more children in Wayne County and Goldsboro to have access to something that could keep them off the streets and live a healthy lifestyle.”

It would also, he added, benefit the community as a whole.

“If they had the tournaments, if they had a nice complex, then that would help the hotel industry in Wayne County. It would help the restaurants in Wayne County,” Atkins said. “It would be a financial benefit for Wayne County, not only obviously for the kids, but for the county and for the city in general.”

On its website, the Y wrote that when Glasgow passed away — she lost a battle with breast cancer in 2003 — the land “became the Y’s property and our Sports Complex began to be developed.”

Atkins, though, said it never lived up to what he and Glasgow had agreed to with Y leaders.

“Well, when we initially presented the information to them, they had drawn up plans of two different baseball fields and several soccer fields and a concession stand, and they had all sorts of things drawn up that I saw back 30 years ago when we initially presented it to them and talked about it,” he said. “So, they knew very well what the intention was and what the plan was. Well, what they did, obviously, is they made, what, two soccer fields? Big deal.”

And had he or his ex-wife known that the land would ultimately be sold to save the Y from financial ruin, they never, Atkins said, would have agreed to donate it.

“A donation would never have been made if we knew that their plan was to simply sell it and bail themselves out,” he said. “And when my ex-wife died, my son said, ‘All they’re going to do is they’re going to sell it. Why are we doing this?’ And so, we sat down with (our children) and talked to them about the importance of philanthropy and we talked about the value for the community and for the kids and talked them out of trying to sell the property because we wanted to do something for Wayne County — not build 150 houses or however many they’re going to build.”

To make matters worse, nobody from the YMCA notified the family that the existing “Sandra E. Glasgow Memorial YMCA Sports Complex” would soon be demolished.

“And it is just appalling to both of us,” Atkins wife, Sherry, said. “Were it not for (a former YMCA executive board member) we would not have heard this.”

Her husband characterized it as “a slap in the face.”

“So, you know, it was very disturbing. I was very — well, my wife and I were both — very upset that this was going on and that we had never heard the first word about it until probably about two weeks ago,” Atkins said. “Somebody needs to be aware.”

Particularly when, according to Sherry, the values of the institutions she and her husband donate money to are of the utmost importance.

Their commitment, she said, is to giving to support causes that align with their values.

And they are careful with where they send those philanthropic funds.

“Jim and I believe in giving when we’re alive so as far as a will, our whole estate, we’re donating. But we are moving our so-called gifts to Wake Forest and (other universities) due to this antisemitism on campus,” she said.

So, her family, she said, remains committed to the same values they discussed with their children when the land donation was discussed after Glasgow’s death.

It is their duty to give back to help make the world — or their little piece of it — a better place, Sherry said.

And it is not about acclaim or notoriety, she added. It is about doing what is right — honorably and respectfully.

That is why what YMCA is doing hurts so much.

“It’s not right,” Sherry said. “They should be ashamed of themselves.”