Foundation to Buy YMCA in Pasadena

The cash-strapped Pasadena YMCA, which closed its doors three months ago amid mounting debts and a state attorney general’s investigation, is selling its shuttered facility to a foundation for use as a community center.

The San Francisco-based James Irvine Foundation will buy the New York Drive building for $530,000 so it can be reopened, with city help, as a home for children’s programs, Pasadena officials said.

Foundation officials said the facility will be part of an initiative to address after-school learning and care for children. The sale was announced late Monday at a Pasadena City Council meeting.

Closure of the facility in September left the city without a YMCA for the first time in 113 years. More than 100 employees lost their jobs after an audit that revealed the YMCA lost nearly $4 million in recent years and was on the brink of bankruptcy.

YMCA Chief Executive Brian Flynn said the sale will allow the branch to regroup, pay off its debts and continue programs for 800 children.

“This allows us to operate as a Y without walls,” he said.

The sale, Flynn said, follows a decision to allow the the Santa Anita YMCA in Monrovia, which was part of the Pasadena Family YMCA, to split away as a separate entity.

After being briefed about the sale, the Pasadena City Council voted 7 to 1 Monday to approve the sale plan. It calls for the Irvine foundation to own the site through its Communities Organization Resources Advancing Learning program; a nonprofit wing of All Saints Episcopal Church will operate the building.

“It’s important to keep this facility available to the public,” said Councilman Paul Little. “We need a youth center that is geared toward 12- to 18-year-olds.”

The deal needed the council’s approval because it calls for the city to provide about $150,000 annually to help the facility, located at 2750 E. New York Drive, said Patricia Lane, city human resources director.

Initially, the city was going to buy the two-story structure. But Lane said the foundation agreed to buy the site at the eleventh hour.