Shut­ter­ing the YMCA of Greater Pitts­burgh’s Down­town fit­ness cen­ter on Fifth Avenue could help close a $1 mil­lion def­i­cit that the strug­gling non­profit runs an­nu­ally, the agency’s chief ex­ec­u­tive said Wed­nes­day.

Despite trim­ming staff, in­sti­tut­ing pay freezes and tak­ing other belt-tight­en­ing mea­sures in re­cent years, the YMCA de­clared bank­ruptcy Tues­day un­der Chap­ter 11 of the U.S. Bank­ruptcy Code. The fil­ing holds cred­i­tors at bay while the ven­er­a­ble agency re­or­ga­nizes its fi­nances.

The Down­town-based non­profit has a $40 mil­lion an­nual bud­get, which is in­flated by over­all phys­i­cal as­sets that are 25 per­cent big­ger than YMCA or­ga­ni­za­tions of com­pa­ra­ble size, pres­i­dent and CEO Kevin Bold­ing said.

More­over, mem­ber­ship fees gen­er­ate 30 per­cent — in­stead of the op­ti­mal 40 per­cent — of the YMCA’s rev­e­nue.

Mark Belko and Adam Smeltz

'A great community asset': Group presents petition in effort to save the Downtown YMCA

“We are in the midst of this dif­fi­culty as well as op­por­tu­nity,” Mr. Bold­ing said at a news con­fer­ence at the YMCA’s Al­le­gheny branch on the North Side. “This was an ex­tremely dif­fi­cult de­ci­sion.”

The Down­town branch of the YMCA is sched­uled to close June 8 and the Del­mont branch will close June 29.

The Down­town branch has about 2,000 ac­tive mem­bers and 100 staff mem­bers, 90 per­cent of whom are part time, Mr. Bold­ing said. All will be of­fered jobs at other branches, where avail­able, and he de­clined to say if fur­loughs would be nec­es­sary.

The YMCA — which op­er­ates 11 com­mu­nity branches and three camps in the Pitts­burgh area — will con­tinue to op­er­ate its fit­ness cen­ter on the lower level of U.S. Steel Tower on Grant Street, Down­town.

In ad­di­tion, the or­ga­ni­za­tion said most of its cen­ters, camps, be­fore and af­ter school care and well­ness pro­grams will con­tinue to op­er­ate as usual. The or­ga­ni­za­tion said it will make sure em­ploy­ees and ven­dors will be paid “in a timely man­ner.”

In its an­nounce­ment of the bank­ruptcy, the YMCA said it had a to­tal mem­ber­ship of more than 80,000.

In the bank­ruptcy court fil­ing, the or­ga­ni­za­tion cited li­a­bil­i­ties rang­ing be­tween $10 mil­lion and $50 mil­lion, and as­sets rang­ing be­tween $50 mil­lion and $100 mil­lion.

Joyce Gannon

Court approves deal for bankrupt YMCA to keep paying Downtown lease

Ce­cil-based MSP Com­mer­cial Subtenant LP is the big­gest cred­i­tor, with a debt of $264,271, which the YMCA listed as dis­puted.

MSP Com­mer­cial Subtenant is an af­fil­i­ate of real es­tate de­vel­oper Mill­craft In­vest­ments, which has proj­ects Down­town and at South­pointe in Wash­ing­ton County. YMCA Board Chair Mar­ga­ret Joy said lease pay­ments were cur­rent for the Down­town branch.

Other cred­i­tors in­clude Spe­cialty Pool Con­trac­tors Inc. of Ross Town­ship, $111,962; and Cli­mat­ech Inc., of Pitts­burgh, $39,709.

The YMCA has been a Pitts­burgh fix­ture since 1854.

For more information from the organization, go here.

Kris B. Mamula: kmamula@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1699

Updated at 3:50 p.m. on May 9, 2018.

First Published: May 9, 2018, 12:45 p.m.