Elyria Youth Sports Club finds home downtown

ELYRIA — Five years after its founding, the Elyria Youth Sports Club has a physical home base to conduct its sports, education and mentorship programs. On Friday, club founder Aric Bowens and several other coaches and presidents of programs within the organization toured the new space with Mayor Kevin Brubaker and other city officials. Pending final approval from Elyria City Council on Monday, the Youth Sports Club is set to lease the top floor of a city-owned building at 336 Broad St. to become its headquarters. The recently upgraded space sits above the Elyria Arts Council, which also rents its space from the city. "Brick and mortar, I mean that is everything," Bowens said Friday. "Now, we can have a place to be identified at, a home and be able to actually have a safe space that is our own to have the children come to. So it literally is everything. It means another building step to continue to try to grow and be a positive influence to the community." Bowens founded the Elyria South Baseball Club in 2020, but since then, it has grown to include chess, football and track and field. Bowens said the club would add boxing this year. Now the Elyria Youth Sports Club, the organization has served hundreds of kids with opportunities to play sports but also be mentored or educated by professionals in a multitude of disciplines. Bowens said that having a designated space would only further develop those extra learning opportunities. "It helps us get more involved and more personal with the kids," said Donny Kibble, vice president of Elyria South Baseball. "We are going to be here in our own facility where we are not on a time limit where somebody is telling us we have to get out of here because somebody else's time is coming up. This is going to be our headquarters, and it's a lot more personal and intimate." Brubaker said that he had asked for the second floor of the city-owned building to be renovated earlier this year when the Arts Council downstairs was set to be renovated. This gave the office a new furnace and air conditioning, and when Bowens began to speak with Brubaker about finding a home downtown, the mayor said he realized he had the perfect spot. "It is the right opportunity for him," Brubaker said. "We're honored to be able to help provide a space for the youth mentoring, the youth sports, because I've seen what Aric and his group have done and the positive impact, especially when the group rolled out the youth mentoring program and I saw the commitment they had made to doing that. I think this just helps that." If Council approves the lease at its Monday meeting, the organization will pay the city $200 a month in rent, with a 5 percent increase in that rate every year the lease is extended. Elyria Youth Sports will be paying for gas and electric costs and its own insurance, while the city will provide water. Brubaker said that years ago the second story office had been home to Invest Elyria, but it has mostly stood vacant since the city purchased the building in 2016. Bowens thanked Brubaker for inviting his organization in, and also credited the mayor for other recent business openings in downtown Elyria, saying he was happy to add to that trend. "(Brubaker has) been doing a lot of great work in downtown Elyria, and the people look and come out here downtown, slowly but surely we are making some big improvements," Bowens said. Contact Owen MacMillan at (440) 329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com.