Mayor Kevin Faulconer and civic leaders officially opened a new state-of-the-art YMCA in the Mid-City neighborhood.
The 53,000-square-foot Copley-Price Family YMCA at 4300 El Cajon Boulevard will serve City Heights, Talmadge and Kensington. It features two pools, a gym, group exercise rooms, a demonstration kitchen and child-care centers.
“This is a flagship,” Faulconer said. “People from all walks of life will come to this ‘Y’”
He spoke to a crowd of several hundred in the $33 million project’s spacious gym.
Baron Herdelin-Doherty, president and CEO of YMCA of San Diego County, said nearly 2,700 memberships have been sold in the few weeks that the new center has been open.
Philanthropist Robert Price, whose father started Price Club, helped underwrite the project by donating the land, the former location of Pearson Ford.
The Copley family, which then owned the local newspapers, donated the lead gift to build the original YMCA in 1956 on Landis Street about a mile away..
Price noted that his family and the Copleys differed politically and are unlikely partners.
“People who come from very different backgrounds can get together and make something special happen,” he said.