6 August 10-16, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents past, without a location downtown.” The ability to serve the community is an intriguing point in this matter. Hazelbaker confirms that even without a downtown gym facility, community outreach efforts such as the annual sponsorship of the Dallas YMCA Turkey Trot, a water safety program, childcare, food distribution and college scholarship program will continue, wher- ever the T. Boone Pickens YMCA facility ends up, if it is relocated at all. It’s a compel- ling argument for those who are fine with exiting downtown. Lindenberger has sat on the T. Boone Pickens YMCA branch board of manage- ment for 15 years. In May he emailed Hazel- baker to share his dismay over the metro board of directors’ unanimous vote to move forward with a sale while not committing to keeping a location downtown in the face of the branch board’s advice. Hazelbaker said that only the board of management has fidu- ciary responsibility for the organization, while the various branch boards serve advi- sory purposes. “I understand the want to abandon a building that has significant needs, but the downtown YMCA is much more than a building that needs to be repaired, it is the heart of a community center that has been in downtown for more than 100 years,” the email reads. “I think there are many more reasons to keep it downtown than not to and that now is not the time to sell and abandon the downtown community without having a plan in place to ensure the support of the community for the next 100 years.” T he downtown Y’s building has been for sale before, in 2019, but the 2020 pandemic compelled the metro board to take the building off the market. At that point, however, Hazelbaker had committed to keeping the T. Boone Pickens YMCA somewhere downtown. By the time the board of directors unanimously voted to ne- gotiate with a prospective buyer earlier this year, the promise to stay downtown was long gone. Some longtime members fear the lack of commitment suggests that Hazelbaker and the board of directors have an agenda to fun- nel more money and resources into YMCA locations in the suburbs and more affluent areas. That concern has gained momentum since the 2022 relocation of the YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas’ corporate offices to Coppell. People like Schlesser and Linden- berger say that their Y location is worth keeping downtown, and that Hazelbaker would agree, if he’d only give it a chance. But Hazelbaker and the board of more than 30 people voted unanimously to move forward with a sale for reportedly around $12 million because they do not see the same viability that opponents of the sale see. Ha- zelbaker cites $8 million in repairs that the building needs, with $6 million of that esti- mate for repairs to non-member-facing ele- ments such as a new chiller for the building’s air conditioning. That number, as daunting as it is, would be more palatable had the Y been able to regain the members it lost when the pandemic hit. “In 2019, our board made the decision that it was important for us to keep a pres- ence downtown,” he said. “Then the pan- demic happened and downtown has come back very, very slow, maybe 60-70% are back in the office compared to 2019, and we’ve seen the same thing in terms of our mem- bership… And so the board made the deci- sion in February that we don’t feel that we have to continue with the presence down- town.” If the sale goes through, the end of the T. Boone Pickens YMCA as it currently stands might very well be near. Hazelbaker recently said the process is ongoing and has not en- countered any snags thus far. But the CEO and some of those who support the sale are also quick to note that they haven’t aban- doned the idea of the Y staying in downtown just because they aren’t guaranteeing it at this point. The YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas sent out a request for proposals to five real estate firms and received four replies, according to Hazelbaker. He and members of his staff are reviewing proposals that would relocate the facility to another spot downtown, north of Ross Avenue. Properties in Uptown are also being considered. I t’s tough to imagine a scenario where everyone wins in this case, mainly due to the drastically different approaches to the dilemma employed by each side. A commercial real estate representative that metro management connected us with sug- gests that it’s not unlikely the T. Boone Pick- ens YMCA can stay downtown if the board of directors can get creative in terms of leas- ing a new location rather than buying it out- right, for example. The rep told us there’s plenty of space to be had downtown. On the flipside, members who feel the metro board is angling for a downtown exit have told us that the board’s plans are doomed to fail because they’re looking for a plot in a smaller part of downtown than they should, and if they do find a place for the right price, it’s unlikely to be the kind of lo- cation that can offer all of the things the cur- rent building does. Even beyond the real estate specifics, there’s a sea of immiscible oil and water to navigate between the two sides. The metro board has assumed a humorless accoun- tant’s perspective where the numbers that filter down a spreadsheet tell all the story that is required. Some members believe the opposition consists of a vocal minority of men who can’t accept cold facts. They em- phasize that the millions of dollars the orga- nization will gain from the purchase price, in addition to the millions that will not be spent on continued upkeep downtown, translates into more money for the metro Y as a whole. On the opposite end of the debate, con- cerned members think primarily of the com- munity-building that happens inside the facility and the tradition that will be lost. Nearly half of the individual membership of the downtown gym is composed of racial minorities, and more than 20% of its mem- bership receives financial assistance. The enriching moments of interaction and bonds between people of many tax brackets, races and life stations, which likely happen more in that building than at any other YMCA in the region, will be bulldozed away. If the T. Boone Pickens YMCA’s sale is completed soon and the building is eventu- ally turned into a mixed-use apartment proj- ect, as has been reported, and the metro board fails to settle on a new downtown lo- cation, something will be missing from downtown. Something that’s been there for so long and has witnessed multiple deaths and resurrections of the area. Try finding that inside even a downtown church these days and you’ll likely be searching for a long while. You’ll also not find that on a spreadsheet or budget plan. The members opposed to the sale and relo- cation need the building, in this case, to con- tinue doing what they feel led to do. “The facility is a connector,” Lindenberg says. “We will lose a lot. There’s nothing that compares to it in downtown or anywhere else in Dallas. If you take away the connec- tions that are formed, it’s easy to diminish the facility. It’s the heart of the city.” ▼ IMMIGRATION ‘HEINOUS DEATH TRAPS’ GOV. ABBOTT BLASTED OVER BORDER BUOYS. BY SIMONE CARTER S oon after news broke that the bodies of two migrants had been pulled from the Rio Grande, Gov. Greg Ab- bott issued a press release with an eye-grab- bing headline. “Operation Lone Star Stops Criminals at President Biden’s Open Border,” the subject line read, referring to the state’s controver- sial border initiative. Abbott’s Aug. 4 news release lauded the state’s efforts to “secure the border; stop the smuggling of drugs, weapons, and people into Texas; and prevent, detect, and interdict transnational criminal behavior between ports of entry.” But immigrant rights advo- cates have condemned the Republican’s rhetoric and demanded an end to his “bar- baric” treatment of migrants. The Lone Star State has faced heightened scrutiny over its border clampdown in re- cent days, but Abbott has continued to brag about the thousands of migrants shipped from Texas to Democratic-controlled cities countrywide. Since April 2022, Texas has bused some 29,000 migrants to New York City, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., according to the news re- lease. Yet while Abbott and other Republican lawmakers continue to roll out increasingly harsh measures at the border, critics have accused them of engaging in deadly acts of political theater. Officials in Mexico reported last week that two bodies had been found in the Rio Grande. Although one of the corpses was discovered stuck in the buoys recently in- stalled by Abbott, Texas officials claimed that the person had drowned upstream be- fore floating into the barrier. One victim was reportedly from Mexico while the other was Honduran. Still, Abbott has pushed back against claims that the buoys were to blame for one of the deaths. “The Mexican government is flat-out wrong,” an Abbott spokesperson said in a statement, according to The Associated Press. Meanwhile, Abbott has continued to cast blame on the Biden administration for not doing more to secure the southern border. “Every individual who is apprehended or arrested and every ounce of drugs seized would have otherwise made their way into communities across Texas and the nation due to President Joe Biden’s open border policies,” reads the governor’s news release. The U.S. Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against Texas and Abbott on July 24, arguing that installation of the buoys vio- lated federal law. Mexican authorities and human rights advocates have blasted the buoys for acting as a sort of cruel trap for migrants. News of the two bodies comes weeks after The Hous- ton Chronicle published troubling allega- tions that state troopers were directed to push crossing immigrants, including Nathan Hunsinger The facility may relocate within downtown. Unfair Park from p4 >> p8
