Sale of YWCA building raises more questions than answers

The YWCA shortly after its opening in 1924.
(Postcard image courtesy of Nellie Dixon.)

The sale of the YWCA building at East Front and Church Streets was announced in a press release on the NJBIZ website Wednesday afternoon (see story here).

According to NJBIZ, the sale was for $1.335 million.

Like other downtown YMCAs and YWCAs, the Plainfield YWCA struggled over the last twenty years to keep its head above water. (Full disclosure: I worked as a volunteer on the YWCA's capital campaign in the early 2000s -- which was successful in getting a new early childhood center built, but ultimately led to throwing in the towel.)

The demise of both the YWCA and the YMCA had much to do with factors beyond their control.

These old-line organizations found it challenging to maintain the physical facilities they have inherited from past glory days and at the same time to provide relevant programming for new membership populations in the face of commercial competitors who have cherry-picked the traditional income and program mainstays.

The mobility brought about by automobiles since World War II has led many to seek newer, grander facilities that are far away from downtown locations with their parking hassles and other issues.

Commercial gyms (Plainfield now has two -- the 24/7 Acero on Park Avenue and the new Blink Fitness across from the YWCA) have made it impossible for YWCA and YMCA fitness programs to compete, whether on equipment, hours or cost -- thus undercutting the traditional mainstays of not just programming, but organizational stability.

For it was from the ranks of those deeply involved in the organization's programs that Board members were drawn, giving both fundraising clout and endowment potential.

Scrappy organizations like both Plainfield's YWCA and YMCA countered by reorganizing themselves, refreshing their board structures, re-imagining their target audiences, re-inventing their programs and reaching out to the community in new and exciting ways.

However, all the effort just was not enough.

The YWCA Board resigned en masse in 2012, allowing a new board organized by the Rev. Gary Kirkwood of King's Temple Ministries to take over the building and the operation of the organization.

There was some buzz at the time as Kirkwood decided to keep the YWCA affiliation -- one condition of which was that the executive director's salary needed to stay within the national YWCA's guidelines.

With Kirkwood as the executive director and a salary base rumored at $135,000, the financial future of the YWCA was troubled indeed.

Once Kirkwood took over, there was a publicity push announcing vigorous programming efforts but by July 2013 the YWCA had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (see Ledger story here).

At the time, the YWCA had liabilities of $4.6 million -- the largest chunk of which ($1.2 million) was owed to the NJ Economic Development Authority for three separate loans. Its assets at the time were primarily the building, which was valued at a little more than $2 million.

There has been little sign of activity in the building in recent years; there are never lights on after 5:00 PM. And snow removal during the winter has been spotty at best, with a pathway cleared through the spacious plaza as opposed to the complete snow removal when the legendary "Mr. Bill" was the facilities manager.

So, you can see that the sale price represents a true distressed sale.

The commercial real estate broker in the transaction, Marcus & Millichap (see their website here) is famous in the industry for having developed the "exclusive listing" strategy meaning it handles (and profits from) both sides in a transaction; this practice has now become the industry standard.

What caught my eye was the mention in the story that both the seller and the buyer are private investors.

If that is so, it would be interesting to know how the now-defunct YWCA got from being in Chapter 11 bankruptcy (and having to answer to a creditor committee) to being owned by a private investor able and willing to make the sale.

There's always more to what's going on in Plainfield than meets the eye. It would also be interesting to know if any person profited from the YWCA's distress.

And of course we wait to hear what use the historically landmarked building will be put to.

(As an aside, I am also waiting to hear more about the sale of the YMCA, which has seen a lot of activity in recent days with the windows being boarded up and workers cleaning out the building, clear signs of a new owner in possession.)

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 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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