Construct Club members toured the Tolleston Opportunity Campus site under construction in Gary to get a glimpse of the future.
“There’s no better way to get the kids to have a sense of ownership,” Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Northwest Indiana President and CEO Mike Jessen said. “This will be their project forever. They will tell their kids and grandkids.”
The $40 million project includes the renovated Tolleston Boys & Girls Club, a new Crossroads YMCA, a Methodist Care First facility and a Wintrust bank branch. Space is set aside for a future coffee shop as well. In all, it’s about an 80,000-square-foot complex, not counting outdoor areas like a track that is in frequent use by neighbors even during construction.
Jessen said the Tolleston renovation would not have happened without the other nonprofits coming together. “It’s a great model for nonprofits to get together and do things cooperatively.”
Project engineer Saul Alvarez, with Powers & Sons Construction, has been leading the Construct Club for middle school kids to get a glimpse of opportunities in the building trades. ‘It’s all very rudimentary, basic stuff,” he said.
The students have learned how to use power drills, make marshmallow shooters with PVC pipe and build ladders with 2×4 lumber. An Easter egg hunt helped them learn to read blueprints to find where the eggs were hidden.
Jessen stood on the newly built ladder to get a photo of the kids, Alvarez said.
Tim Ervin, director of strategic initiatives for Powers & Sons, came up with the Construct Club idea. It’s a captive audience that meets twice a month to expose them to different facets of construction.
A financial literacy session separated the 12- to 14-year-olds into two groups. The owners were given a set number of chocolates to negotiate the terms of a construction project. The builders wanted more of the chocolates for their efforts, and the owners wanted to keep as many as possible for themselves. The chocolates were a tasty proxy for dollars.
Construct Club members watched the demolition of part of the old Boys & Girls Club from a safe distance as the project began early last year. “Anything that was demolished was pretty rough,” Alvarez said. It was damp with garbage everywhere and wasn’t used by the Boys & Girls Club because of its condition.
The club’s gym also got wet when it rained because of missing and damaged mortar on the masonry exterior, Jessen said. Rather than cover the problem, the club opted to fix it to make sure it would be in good shape for the next 50 years or more.
The Boys & Girls Club part of the project is nearing completion. The kids will begin using it in early June, Jessen said.
“I don’t think any of them have seen any of the construction,” Jessen said.
The club will have a separate entrance from the YMCA and other facilities on the campus. Parents picking up or dropping off kids will have to wait in the lobby. Kids will have to be buzzed in to enter the club from the lobby, Alvarez said.
Like other newer clubs, the restrooms have the sinks in a common area outside the toilets to offer more supervision and prevent shenanigans.
The club members who toured the facilities were impressed.
The Crossroads YMCA will include a wading pool, a regular-size pool, a warm therapy pool with a ramp for ADA compliance, and what Jessen describes as a “monster-size hot tub.” The warm therapy pool is a first for the Crossroads YMCA network, he said.
“I’m excited for the swimming pool because I like to swim,” said Angel, one of the Construct Club members on the tour. She wants to become an Olympic swimmer or a lawyer, or possibly both.
Jessen expects to work out an arrangement with Crossroads YMCA for dual memberships to share facilities. Methodist could do the same for patients to do rehab with YMCA facilities, he said.
He stressed the importance of learning to swim at one of the few public pools in Gary, especially with Lake Michigan on the city’s doorstep.
Davonte is impressed with the pool, too. “I’d like to try it out.” But the arts room at the Boys & Girls Club is intriguing, too, for the future sculptor. “I like the buildings. It’s amazing,” Davonte said.
“I love the new building,” Andrea said. “It looks new, it looks fresh, it looks clean.” The future journalist, also the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Northwest Indiana’s Youth of the Year, shot video of the construction site to show club members who couldn’t be there.
Sharaya said the tour was fun. “It’s not the same,” she said. “It’s way different, but I like it.”
As the Tolleston Boys & Girls Club project nears completion, construction on the rest of the Tolleston Opportunity Campus will continue, with a wall set up to keep the kids from wandering into the active construction area before the rest of the complex is finished.
Jessen said a minor renovation at the Portage club includes two new rooms in the existing space. Looking to the future, he has his eye on Jasper and Newton counties for possible expansion. His organization has staked a claim to those two counties with the possibility of future clubs. “There’s a need there, especially in those rural communities,” he said.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
