Y Celebrates temporary home

11/23/2005

BY MICHAEL-ALLAN MARION
EXPOSITOR STAFF / BRANTFORD

A round of celebratory speeches and a visit by Jim Watson, the Minister of Health Promotion, marked the official opening Tuesday of the YM-YWCA’s new facility, the Crosby Cable Family Program Centre.

About 100 people in a gymnasium also heard dignitaries laud Steve Charest of King & Benton Redevelopment Corp. He is credited with completing the $1.2 million project on a non-profit basis to transform the old Work Wear building into a bright new facility.

It will serve for the next two years as a transitional building for the Y until its permanent facility is built on Market Street South by Earl Haig Park, then remain as a family program centre.

OLD FACTORY TRANSFORMED

Participants watched a video with a rapid succession of photos showing the gutting of the old Work Wear textiles factory and the step-by-step transformation of the structure into a room for children’s activities and space for exercise machines, weight training, a sauna and other features.

YM-YWCA CEO Nancy Romanenko thanked Charest and his company for putting together the plan last spring and putting in place the necessary financing that will allow the Y to run an affordable centre while planning the larger permanent project.

Then in five months, “Steve created this place literally at the speed of sound, “Romanenko told the audience, while presenting Charest with an art work.

Charest paid tribute to Nancy Gibson, the Y’s customer service supervisor, who inspired him to name the facility after her father, Crosby Cable.

Charest said that Gibson told him in the spring during the Y’s announcement of its move that as a little girl she used to go to the Work Wear building more than 50 years ago when it was Williams tool and die factory to meet her father, punch out his time card and go home with him.

“I want to thank these people for allowing me to walk back into this building again,” she said last spring.

In an interview, Watson said the building is an example of the rising role that organizations like the Y can play in improving the fitness and health of Ontario’s population.

“I’m very impressed with how they’ve taken a brownfield and turned in into this,” he added.