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Peconic YMCA now seeks to buy land

Peconic YMCA has raised $6 million of the $8 million it needs to purchase a parcel of land in Riverhead Town. The Y is running this ad on suffolktimes.com as part of its efforts.

Peconic YMCA is no longer considering building a facility at the Enterprise Park at Calverton, and they’re no longer waiting for someone to give them land.

But the group has raised $6 million of the $8 million needed to move forward with a new YMCA in Riverhead Town.

“At this point, we’re really going independent,” said Fritz Trinklein, director of strategic planning for YMCA of Long Island. “What we’ve decided is that the YMCA is willing to acquire property on their own. We’ve always been beholden upon gifts, mainly from the public arena. And nothing has worked out.”

Those gifts included sites that were part of unpopular development projects at Riverside Drive in Riverhead and Manor Road in Calverton, and Riverhead School District land in Aquebogue that was part of an unpopular school construction project, as well as proposed sites on county-owned land near Indian Island Park and town-owned land at Stotzky Park as well as EPCAL.

Peconic YMCA first unveiled plans for a Y in Riverhead more than 10 years ago and has yet to settle on a location.

“The overall feeling was, if we’re going to get this thing done, we’re going to have to do it privately,” Mr. Trinklein said, adding that YMCA is considering a number of properties in Riverhead Town as a possible location but hasn’t gone into contract on any of them.

The parameters would place the westernmost site they’d consider at the terminus of the Long Island Expressway. The easternmost site they’d consider would be in Jamesport.
That means building at EPCAL is completely off the table.

“We just have had no further indication by the town that they could make that site available,” Mr. Trinklein said. “And our committee never liked that site to begin with; we felt it was too far west for downtown access.”

The $8 million would include both construction and land acquisition costs, he said. The money raised includes $3 million from the Glen Cove-based YMCA of Long Island.

The Peconic YMCA would have an indoor swimming pool as its centerpiece, along with a strength training center, multipurpose rooms and locker rooms, Mr. Trinklein said.
Peconic YMCA also now has a website, a Facebook site and a way for people to make contributions online, he said.

[email protected]

Scroll down to see Peconic YMCA’s brochure

Peconic YMCA Brochure

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