NORWICH – After months of renovations, the Norwich Family YMCA is one step closer to officially opening a cutting-edge workout room that combines health and wellness with interactive technology.

The organization’s new interactive fitness room is just one part of a larger $300,000-plus construction project recently spearheaded by the YMCA that includes a complete overhaul of the facility’s 3-story high kids’ gym area. Staffers closed the kids’ gym in 2013 citing conditions that made it unsafe.

“We were getting ready to make some upgrades, but we found we could almost buy a new kids’ gym for what it costs for upgrades to the old one,” said Jamie Mullen, Norwich Family YMCA Executive Director.

That in mind, the YMCA Board of Directors decided to purchase a new kids’ gym. But before installing it, they also found between 10 and 15 feet of unused space from the top of the old kids’ gym to the ceiling. Mullen said that sparked an idea to install a concrete floor halfway up, thereby splitting the one-floor room into two separate rooms.

Thanks to additional funding gifted by the Roger Follett Foundation, the project got underway in the fall. When all was said and done, the YMCA was provided 800 square feet of floor space that hadn’t previously existed.