With two locations to serve their population, the Door County YMCA developed a vision for how to better serve their unique communities and “be the destination for personalized, holistic, lifetime wellness.” Realizing their facilities were not completely in sync with the lifestyles of their membership and were not supporting the wellness programming the Y envisioned providing, the YMCA engaged Kahler Slater to deliver programming and planning as well as conceptual design to help make this vision manifest at both their Northern Door Center and their Sturgeon Bay Center.
The existing Northern Door Center already included the YMCA's core program spaces such as a Lifestyle Center (fitness), a pool, a gymnasium, multi-purpose rooms and kids care spaces. It was not only a design goal to align the Center with the newly created vision but also to make it more "health seeker" friendly by expanding existing spaces to make them more comfortable while also adding a level of warmth throughout the entire facility. The concept was to reshuffle interior spaces to improve the member welcome experience and add expanded Lifestyle Center space, family locker rooms, and more social areas for the teens and the community. These changes will allow for meeting spaces to support Y programming such as LiveStrong, their many diverse social clubs, as well as important wellness offerings.
“These improvements are highly visible and significantly improve the usability of our facility.”Tom Beerntsen, CEO, Door County YMCA
