Greater Austin YMCA Selects MP-Austin to Repurpose TownLake Property with New YMCA Facility, Affordable Housing, Childcare
The Greater Austin YMCA has selected MP-Austin, an affiliate of New York-based Millennium Partners, to repurpose the TownLake YMCA property as a community hub for wellbeing that will include a new Y facility, affordable and market-rate housing, a new YMCA Tomorrow Academy early education center, and other wrap-around services such as mental health counseling.
The Greater Austin Y will sell a portion of its 4.8-acre property along West Cesar Chavez Street to MP-Austin while retaining ownership of the parcel where a new TownLake YMCA will be built. In addition to market-rate housing, initial designs also include up to 90 high-quality, affordable rental units with a majority of two-and three-bedroom options suitable for families, a new YMCA approximately 110,000 square feet including 50,000 square feet of programmable space for youth, including a 10,000-square-foot early education center.
The Austin nonprofit began evaluating options as the current TownLake Y facility, built in 1970, is reaching the end of its lifespan and has required significant maintenance investments in recent years.
“We’ve spent the last two years talking with neighbors and stakeholders to learn what our community needs,” said Kathy Kuras, Greater Austin YMCA President and CEO. “In the process we recognized a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the health and wellbeing of the entire community by reimagining and repurposing the TownLake YMCA.”
Kuras said the vision for the project focuses on community drivers of health, including:
- Accessible, quality and affordable early education and childcare
- Wellness and mental health services
- Affordable housing
- Connectivity to neighboring communities
Y Board members believe that a combination of market-rate and affordable housing will help more families live in Central Austin, provide more childcare options for Downtown Austin workers, bring new, accessible services and amenities to the community and generate long-term revenue to support YMCA services across Greater Austin.
“Repurposing the TownLake Y will create an economic engine that benefits and helps sustain all Greater Austin YMCA centers and childcare programs for the next 100 years,” said Kate Henderson, Greater Austin YMCA Metro Board member and leader of the task force to create the vision for repurposing the Y and for selecting a redevelopment partner.
Henderson said the Y selected Millennium Partners because of its impressive record of creating significant, urban, mixed-use properties over more than three decades. Most notably in Boston, New York and San Francisco, Millennium entered struggling neighborhoods with a focus on urbanism and public service.
“In every project, we actively engage with the community to best understand ways to create unique mixed-use developments that will not only thrive on their own, but equally importantly, activate the surrounding neighborhood,” said Richard Baumert, Managing Partner at Millennium.
“Again and again, we have been a catalyzing force for positive change, created on a foundation of public discussion and the deeply held belief that every one of our developments should serve the common good for generations to come.”
The Y and Millennium will be working with Austin-based Foundation Communities on a plan for the affordable housing component of the project. The planning is supported by a grant from the St. David’s Foundation.
“This project will be unprecedented in Austin,” said Walter Moreau, Foundation Communities CEO, “delivering larger family-size residences at deeper levels of affordability than anything available in our urban core. We commend the Y and MP-Austin for their vision and willingness to address this critical issue.”
In addition, the Y has enlisted Triangle2, a national consulting firm that specializes in serving YMCAs, along with local real estate firm The Drenner Group to ensure that the project is positioned to best support the organization’s mission and the community’s needs.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson recognized the Y and Millennium Partners for their focus on leveraging the project to address urgent community needs while ensuring long-term stability for the Y.
“When we talk about Downtown being Austin’s ‘living room,’ this is exactly the kind of project that will make that living room a more welcoming, engaging, vibrant, safe, and accessible place that creates smiles,” Watson said. “Like improving the look of I-35, Project Connect and the Austin Convention Center, it’s yet another opportunity to be thoughtful and creative and proactive and to take the necessary steps to ensure we are creating the future we want.”
Now that the agreement has been approved by the Y board, Millennium and the Y will begin preliminary work and a new round of community engagement with the community to inform project designs, with the goal of breaking ground by 2028.
Repurposing of the TownLake Y property is part of a larger YMCA plan that the Y announced in September 2023, to reimagine and repurpose all of its area properties to ensure the Y is serving the broadest possible range of community needs.
