The Union at Garey (Pomona YMCA)

The Union at Garey (Pomona YMCA) is a winner for the 2025 Preservation Design Award for Rehabilitation. Award recipients are selected by a jury of top professionals in the fields of architecture, engineering, planning, and history, as well as renowned architecture critics and journalists. Tickets and sponsorship options are available at californiapreservation.org/programs/awards/.

About The Union at Garey (Pomona YMCA)

The Pomona YMCA had fallen from being a symbol of pride and gathering place of the Pomona community to a deteriorating building that the YMCA could no longer afford to maintain and dormitory housing that the community wanted closed.

The project scope was to provide public benefit for the community.  Assembly areas were adapted into a community event center with state-of-the-art lighting, sound, LED wall and commercial kitchen.  Stores, professional services and cafe line the lobby that serves as a community gathering space.

The basement locker and exercise rooms were adapted into the owner’s company headquarters and the upper residential floors into offices.

Reviving this National Register building was possible only through an owner willing to accept lower rentable area by restoring open areas and lower rents to include community-serving non-profits.  The project is a model that shows the success of preservation is measured more than just by dollars.

Community Importance

Before its reopening, the Pomona YMCA building was closed for over 10 years. One of the city’s most significant buildings was languishing and consistently being vandalized with break ins.  A school had purchased the building, but put it back on sale after realizing how much the rehabilitation costs would be.  A local businessman and preservation advocate, who is also a local resident, had a vision to turn the building back into a gathering place for the community, serving local businesses, youth and non-profits.

Consequently, the goal of the project was adaptively-reusing it as a community event center where youth, non-profits and local businesses serving the community could synergize with one another and also a new home for his company’s headquarters.

The community now has a state-of-the-art venue with multiple assembly rooms and large lobby already hosting weddings, quinceaneras, concerts, business, civic and other meetings.  It also hosts graduations for a charter school across the street and church services when a neighboring church burned down.  The front yard often hosts outdoor outreach events for churches and city agencies.

With the majority of office tenants being non-profits and a popular local barber shop, skate shop and cafe moving in, the building has become a popular gathering spot for youth in the area.  Non-profits are given discounted rent, further promoting uses that benefit the community.

The Union at Garey has revived the community, creating a safer neighborhood, places for youth to hang out, residents and organizations to have gatherings and offering public events.

About CPF and the Awards

The California Preservation Awards are a statewide hallmark, showcasing the best in historic preservation. The awards ceremony includes the presentation of the Preservation Design Awards and the President’s Awards, bringing together hundreds of people each year to share and celebrate excellence in preservation.

The California Preservation Foundation (CPF), a 501c3 nonprofit, was incorporated in 1978. We now support a national network of more than 36,000 members and supporters. Click here to learn how you can become a member.