Crossroads YMCA making progress on $70M destination facility

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The Crossroads YMCA in northwest Indiana has the finish line in sight for its new $70 million destination YMCA facility at the former Woodmar Mall site in Hammond.

The 120,000-square-foot building, part of a project that will eventually also include an outdoor water park, is on track for completion in December, according to President and CEO Jay Buckmaster.

The new facility, which is expected to bring 200 new jobs to the region, will feature three gymnasiums, a family pool area, a fitness center with multiple group exercise studios, and a second-floor track, among other amenities.

The project was originally announced in 2021 with a $45 million cost and 100,000-square-foot footprint, but Buckmaster said the successful renovation of the Southlake YMCA in Crown Point led to an increase in scope.

“The Crown Point Y had opened and during that time, we had seen a big boost in that membership,” he said. “We really fed off some of the success that Crown Point had, and that Y had gone from about 10,000-12,000 members to about 47,000 members right now. It’s currently the largest Y in America, and so we think Hammond is going to overtake that crown.”

The current YMCA facility in Hammond serves about 16,000 members. Buckmaster said he expects the new Hammond facility to be able to serve about 50,000 members when complete.

“Just in a size comparison, you could fit three of the current Hammond Ys into this current facility, and so that gives you a little bit of scope of what that looks like,” he said.

The outdoor water park component is slated for a much later opening, however. Our partners at The Times of Northwest Indiana report YMCA and city officials are targeting a parcel of land near the new building that currently houses two strip malls for the water park, which would mean demolishing those buildings.

“They want to move the outdoor water park north of the building toward 165th Street. Because of the economics of the development, they want to fully optimize the footprint,” Mayor Tom McDermott told the publication.

Buckmaster said the YMCA is working with the city on a master plan for the area, which also includes the Hammond Sportsplex. He said work on the outdoor water park is expected to be complete by late 2025, but will likely open to the public for the summer season in the summer of 2026.

As construction on the facility continues, Buckmaster said he thinks people will be overwhelmed when it finally opens.

“It’s one thing to drive past it, but I think just to be able to really understand the grandness of this facility, I think it’s something that people are just really excited for and maybe still can’t put their arms around,” he said. “I know that was the same when we moved into the facility at Southlake.”

The Crossroads YMCA launched a capital campaign to fund the facility, which has received $35 million from the Dean and Barbara White Family Foundation, as well as $10 million from the city of Hammond, with the remainder coming from private donations.

“We’ve had some generous donors [and] been able to name some major parts of the facility, but we still have naming opportunities available,” Buckmaster said.

Buckmaster said the organization is looking to raise at least another $5 million for the project, but noted that they always expected to take on some debt to get the facility across the finish line.

“We knew in order to do this right that there was going to have to be a little bit of that as we were wanting to do this right the first time,” he said.

The YMCA plans to host some member-only preview events ahead of an early December opening, though specific dates have not yet been announced.