YMCA of Central New Mexico to open West Side location in 2026

West Side, there’s no need to feel down. Next year, there’s a place you can go — a new YMCA location on Coors Road.

The YMCA of Central New Mexico will open its first West Side location inside the Cottonwood West shopping center at 10131 Coors NW in early 2026, the organization announced in a news release on Wednesday.

The organization, a Christian nonprofit providing recreational and youth development activities to communities throughout central New Mexico, is aiming to open the location in January or February, according to President and CEO Roberto Aguirre.

“I firmly believe that a YMCA brings and helps build quality of life for any community that we serve, and (the) West Side deserves and needs to have a YMCA,” Aguirre said.

The new location will create up to 90 full- and part-time jobs and serve 8,000 to 10,000 people, according to the news release. The organization served more than 16,000 people in 2024, the release said.

The YMCA of Central New Mexico was created in 1915, only three years after New Mexico became a state. It has six locations, including four in Albuquerque, one in Santa Fe and an overnight camp in Jemez Springs.

Establishing a location on the West Side has been in the works since the late 1990s, said Aguirre, who’s been working with the organization for 40 years. While the organization offers programs in schools and community facilities on the West Side, the organization has never been able to set up a physical location there “for one reason or another,” Aguirre said.

Those conversations didn’t reignite until 2019, when the organization discovered a strong desire and need for a YMCA location on the West Side through its growth plan and market research for the year.

“It was loud and clear,” Aguirre said.

The organization discovered the 20,000-square-foot unit on Coors Road about a year ago and signed a 10-year lease for the space in June. The space’s previous tenant was a Burkes Outlet, a discount department store that occupied the space for fiveyears and closed more than two years ago, according to the property’s owner, Art Gardenswartz.

The center is in a transitional period, Gardenswartz said, shifting to a lineup of more local tenants. In recent months, the center said goodbye to national chains, including Marshalls and Joann Fabrics.

The Joann space has been backfilled by discount store SuperBlackFridays, which Gardenswartz said is expected to open in the next month or so, and the center is close to signing a deal with a local tenant to replace the former Marshalls, he said.

“We’re real excited about having the Y,” Gardenswartz said. “They’re a great local fitness tenant, good for the community, so we hope to work together to make them very successful.”

Gardenswartz has committed to putting roughly $300,000 into upgrading the YMCA space, while the organization will invest roughly $1 million, Aguirre said.

The interior is being demolished and prepped for renovations that will transform the former box store into a state-of-the-art facility with fitness equipment, group exercise studios, early childhood education classrooms, locker rooms and a lobby area.

The space will also feature offices for corporate staff, creating a headquarters for the organization, which it does not currently have.

The new location will offer programming for people of all ages, including fitness programs starting at age 9; youth sports starting at age 3; group exercise classes, including yoga and cycling; free New Mexico pre-K; evening care for parents to have a night out; nutrition and wellness classes; and personal training and parent-child wellness programs.

The organization offers what Aguirre described as a range of affordable rates for members and non-members. The YMCA also offers financial assistance options to those in need; it provided $322,000 in assistance to low-income families in 2024, Aguirre said.

It’s hard for Aguirre to believe that conversations he was a part of nearly three decades ago are finally coming to fruition.

“(It’s) a dream come true,” Aguirre said.