Ridgewood Family YMCA

Get ready Parma, you will now be traveling to the North Royalton — Family Y to enjoy your membership. This will make the already crowded facilities there even more crowded. Also, be sure to stop by at the other ugly glass boxy building, the new north royalton branch county library. The mayor thought this would be so great, because he could place his new city hall in the old library building which was to have been remodeled and expanded. Lo and behold we will now have two communities sharing facilities — -but the lease the Y has is with North Royalton, and it is North Royalton residents that subsidize and maintain the building with service workers and our tax dollars. What a joke this has all become. But hey, maybe they’ll expand the parking and add some more stop lights.

I’ve gone to this Y for many years and have not enjoyed seeing it age ungracefully. The high point for the location was many (many) years ago when they were advertising anticipated expansion plans. It turned out, though, that was all a ruse to help get the Parma Rec Center initiative defeated («bate and switch» being the management’s mantra apparently). Since then the location has continued to collapse in on itself while being poorly maintained, cutting operating hours, and sporting a staff that’s unable to lift a finger to do so much as to clean the TV tubes. All that can be had for the low, low price of two to three times what the competition charges.
With all those faults, how does it stay open? Well get ready for the one star that this Y deserves: the pool. When it’s not occupied by a swim team, the pool is very nice and makes for an affordable membership. As well, if you have a family then its cheap, and if they like to swim then this place is REALLY cheap.

(Ridgwewood YMCA in Parma)
My children started here with toddler swimming and now swim high school. They have a GREAT program for swimmers, and a fun team too. Their senior activities and social events are the best and most active in the county. The location is getting up there in age but you couldn’t find a greater group of members and staff, I am proud to call them friends. A true family and welcoming atmosphere always.

I would like to give a 3−½ star rating on this but settled for 3. I have to say that the staff is awesome. My wife does the water aerobics on Tuesday and Thursday evenings while I either watch or walk the treadmill (dreadmill?) and we both work out on Saturday mornings. We were doing the floor aerobics on Tuesdays at the Y at Parmatown but that’s too much for a Tuesday to do both classes.
Perhaps a gym would be cheaper, closer and more modern but the Y wins out with having a very nice year round heated pool.
Wife and I (Royalton residents) are excited to know they are under construction of a new facility in Royalton. Yay!!!

We’ve been taking our daughter to the Y for over a year now. We started her out with swimming lessons, which she still takes. Now, we’re doing basketball, which she loves.
It’s great to have this YMCA in Parma because the city has never built a recreation center. I guess it’s good from the City’s budget perspective, but it’s one of the bane’s of living in Parma. The Y is not a top notch-​facility because it is small and cramped, but at least it’s here. I’m not complaining, but I’d love to see this place expand. It’s where I took my first swimming lesson as a kid and I’m glad to see that it hasn’t outlived its usefulness.
Two thumbs up to the staff for showing up and making a difference in peoples’ lives every day. If they have Internet, I am going to donate a wireless router so that parents have something to do while their kids are in sports classes.