County could step in to save Y
Tangelo Park facility closed by organization
While the YMCA of Central Florida’s plan to sell Camp Wewa grabbed headlines last month, the permanent shuttering of the Tangelo Park Y got less attention outside of the predominantly Black working-class neighborhood where it had been an activity center for better than three decades in the shadow of Orlando’s tourist district.
But Gwendolyn Clinton took notice.
The Y was a family thing for Clinton, who has lived most of her 59 years in Tangelo Park. Her parents, she said, had campaigned for a Y in the early 1980s, believing the community of 800 homes deserved a place where neighbors could get together and stay fit.
She and her husband, Danny, worked out there three times a week — she did aerobics, he hit the weights.
The 15,000-square-foot recreation complex, adjacent to Tangelo Park Elementary School, closed temporarily in March 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
In October, Clinton began to worry when she read an update on the YMCA’s financial struggles. The organization had lost half its revenues to COVID-19 closings and restrictions. The email said the Y was committed to Tangelo Park, but Clinton also knew the Y had re-opened facilities in more affluent areas — downtown Orlando, Dr. Phillips, Winter Garden.
Then in January, the Y announced it would not re-open in Tangelo Park. It asked to be released from its $1-a-year lease for the county-owned property.
“It was like, well, what now?” Clinton said.
Named for a citrus hybrid crossing a tangerine and a pomelo, Tangelo Park was built in the 1950s on former orange groves. The community, which has struggled through some hard economic times, was first designed as a neighborhood for workers at the former Martin Marietta plant, which built monorail trains for Walt Disney World.
“It was heart-breaking when we found out the Y wasn’t reopening,” said Jeri Adkinson, 71, a member of the Tangelo Park Civic Association.
The county now is pondering a rescue of the facility, built in 1981, though it will likely cost millions to fix and staff it.
The aging facility offered basketball for kids and adults, a pool to cool off in, and meeting spaces for community gatherings and programs. A special class taught kids how to golf. The Y also hosted summer science and math activities, school-backpack give-aways, trunk or treat at Halloween and “Silver Sneakers” for seniors, said Dan Saginario, a vice president for the YMCA of Central Florida.
He said nearly 300 residents were active Tangelo Park Y members and were offered free access at any reopened YMCA throughout the pandemic and through 2021.
A county analysis estimated that staffing the Y as a recreation/community facility will cost taxpayers about $783,000 a year.
In a recent presentation to county commissioners, Lavon Williams, manager of Orange County Community Action, said the Tangelo Park Y needs about $4 million in renovations, including a gym floor, a new pool, fire-prevention sprinklers and a new heating and air conditioning system. She called the preliminary financial estimates “still a work in progress” that could increase.
But Commissioner Victoria Siplin, whose district includes Tangelo Park, described the facility as vital and endorsed the renovation.
“We have to be responsible for it because, if we don’t do anything, it becomes an eyesore,” Siplin said, pointing out that tax dollars built it. “It’s not a matter [now] of ‘Can we afford it?’ The point is, if we don’t do something to save it, then we’ve just wasted our investment . ... Why would you just let it go to ruins when we’ve already invested so much?”
She said it still can be a place that helps connect residents to family services and county assistance programs.
The bills could be paid at least partly with money from the International Drive Community Redevelopment Area. Known as the I-Drive CRA, the special taxing district was created under a state program intended to help “slum and blighted areas.” But it has diverted about $20 million a year from the county’s chief budget fund and reserved it for projects in the adjacent tourist corridor anchored by Universal Orlando and SeaWorld Orlando, hotels and timeshares, and the county’s convention center.
In Dec. 2019, for instance, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings and the county commission agreed in a 4-3 vote to give Universal Orlando up to $100 million from the special tax district to help Universal pay to extend Kirkman Road through property on which it will build its Epic Universe theme park. The park is within the district boundaries.
But a rescue of the Y also may now fit into a plan by Demings to spend some I-Drive CRA cash on affordable housing and a community gym in Tangelo Park.
Sam Butler, 77, who has lived in Tangelo Park for nearly half a century, said he hopes the county will not just take over the facility, but upgrade it and add family services.
“We’re looking for a place that’s comparable with other family centers around the county,” he said.
The county runs 13 Neighborhood Service Centers, including a small one in Tangelo Park, which could expand its programs if it had more space, Butler said.
He said he hoped the former Y could be re-imagined to offer not only a pool and basketball but counseling programs, tutoring and employment skill classes.
“We need more than ball,” Butler said.