VITAL STATS
Name: former YMCA gymnasium
Address: 220 N.W. Sixth St.
Year Built: 1927
Architect: Frank J. Schlotter
Style: Gothic Revival
Historical Footnote: The gym was built to be fireproof and features maple flooring and ornamental metal marquees.
Five years after the $18.1 million Ascension St. Vincent YMCA opened across the street, the historic former YMCA gymnasium in Downtown Evansville sits empty, with apartment housing seen as its most likely future use.
The gym is temporarily owned by Indiana Landmarks, which saves historic buildings across the state. Restoration of the Owen Block and the former Greyhound bus terminal (now BRU Burger Bar) are among its Evansville success stories.
Indiana Landmarksโ goal for the gym is to โassist in finding a developer for the building that would be sensitive to the historic nature of it, the architectural features and such,โ says Stephanie Richard, the groupโs new Southwest Field Office director.
The Southwest Indiana Regional Economic Development Authority is seeking a $4.85 million Lilly Endowment Fund grant on behalf of AP Development LLC of the Indianapolis, Indiana, area. If awarded, the grant would support 38 apartment units in the old gym, as well as another 40 units in a newly constructed building at Northwest Sixth and Vine streets.
AP Development LLC, an Indianapolis-based development company owned by Jon Anderson, in 2022 opened 62 housing units in the Clifford Shopbell & Company section of the former YMCA property, which faces Vine Street and dates to 1913. Richard noted AP Development LLCโs work in historic preservation and the companyโs involvement with another project in Evansville โ converting the former Karges Furniture factory on Maryland Street into 150 housing units. That project is to receive $3.745 million from the State of Indianaโs READI (Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative) program.
She says sheโs cautiously optimistic a housing plan for the former YMCA gymnasium will move forward, too, but any timeline depends on when financing is available. Anderson did not return a phone message from Evansville Business.
The gym at Sixth and Court streets was designed in 1927 for Central High School and features a Gothic Revival exterior of red brick and Indiana limestone. Before Central moved to First Avenue in the early 1970s, the gym hosted college basketball, too โ Indiana State University-Evansville (now the University of Southern Indiana) once played home games there.
The gym was integrated into the Y in 1979 and was used by the agency through 2019.
Richard says Indiana Landmarks will make sure that any construction work inside the building will not change how it looks from the street.
Covenants would be in place with any developer, she explains, to โprotect the character and historic nature of the exterior.โ
