Cheyenne YMCA to close indefinitely

CHEYENNE (WNE) — The Cheyenne YMCA will close its doors indefinitely next Friday, Sept. 26.

This comes after years of financial difficulty and an attempted lifeline extended from the YMCA of Northern Colorado and Southern Wyoming, when it was asked to take control of the local Y around four years ago.

Chris Coker, president and CEO of the YMCA of Northern Colorado and Southern Wyoming, said the decision was made with great regret.

“I’ve opened about a dozen Ys in my Y career. I’ve never closed one,” he said Monday. “This is the first time I’ve ever closed a Y, and it’s horrible.”

Due to lack of membership, the Cheyenne location has been losing around $800,000 per year. Coker said it would have needed 1,000 more memberships to stay afloat from community support.

He said when his group of YMCAs, which stretch from north of Denver to Johnstown, Colorado, took over four or five years ago, the Cheyenne location would have only lasted a few more months without external support.

Although this provided a lifeline of a few extra years, Coker said he ultimately believes it is best for a community YMCA to be locally controlled to best serve its members.

“We’re down here in Colorado, and Cheyenne is its own town and community. And I think that it needed to be owned and operated by a Cheyenne entity,” he said. “... We’ve dumped millions (of dollars) into that Y from here. I can’t dump any more into it. It’s going to bankrupt all the other Ys.”

Currently, Cheyenne has no community recreation center, but it could be an item decided by Laramie County voters on the sixth penny sales tax ballot in 2026.

This story was published on Sept. 16, 2025.