City to Use KTUB Facility to Meet Needs Resulting from COVID-19

Published on June 15, 2020

The City of Kirkland has chosen not to execute an additional one-year contract extension with the YMCA for services at the Kirkland Teen Union Building (KTUB) to allow for this facility to be utilized for human services needs resulting from COVID-19.

In June of 2019 the YMCA was notified that the City would not be renewing their contract after the expiration of the ten-year lease in 2020 in order to evaluate all potential options for the City-owned facility. This February, just before the COVID-19 outbreak struck Kirkland, the City offered the YMCA a one-year lease extension.  Since March, the pandemic has cost Kirkland an estimated $10 – 13 million dollars in lost tax revenue and the City is seeing rising cases of hunger and homelessness. The City made the difficult decision to withdraw the one-year lease extension in order to use the City-owned KTUB facility to provide feeding and shelter services throughout the summer. One of the services being considered includes allowing Friends of Youth to use the facility as a temporary Day Center for young adults experiencing homelessness. The City has also reprioritized its two community centers to support emerging human services needs.

“The Parks and Community Services Department has had a longstanding, positive relationship with the YMCA. It was a difficult decision not to offer a one-year extension to the YMCA for KTUB; KTUB has not been operational for months due to COVID-19, and would have only been able to open at a limited capacity when King County reaches Phase 3. The current COVID-19 outbreak requires the flexibility of utilizing all of our facilities to respond to the changing and growing human services needs in our community resulting from the pandemic,” said Parks and Community Services Director Lynn Zwaagstra.

The Peter Kirk Community Center and the North Kirkland Community Center have also been closed to public programming through September 1. These two City buildings will also be used to provide critical services to community members who need food, shelter, counseling or other support to cope with the impacts of the coronavirus outbreak.