In the two weeks the new Kalona Community Center has been open it’s already exceeded the YMCA’s expectations of membership.

YMCA of Washington County Interim C.E.O. Amy Schulte told the Kalona City Council at their recent meeting that before the center opened they had 497 members and now they have at least 737 members. Schulte said the gold standard percentage of residents registered is 12% and Kalona has far exceeded that percentage with 628 residents.

Kalona City Administrator Ryan Schlabaugh says they are still making some tweaks to the new facilities, such as additional clocks and directional signage, “You know we’re going to work with Mid-Prairie School District and IMS on some student driven art. Now that we kind of know the wall space and where some of those areas would be receptive to some local art, we’re going to hopefully have them come in and custom design some things that we can put on display. So we’re excited that the building’s open but we’re also excited about kind of fine tuning it for the public.”

The city council approved change order increases of $796 to Summit Fire Protection and $711.07 to DeLong Construction and a pay application of $675.52 to DeLong Construction for the community center project. Schlabaugh expects final acceptance of the project completion will be in October.