Des Moines Area Community College has resumed negotiations with the YMCA of Greater Des Moines about a jointly operated student recreation center/Ankeny YMCA on the DMACC main campus.

DMACC President Rob Denson said today that DMACC and the YMCA have “reached an understanding to where the relationship needs to go.”

Denson said that the two boards hope to come to a final agreement by mid-summer for the YMCA to operate the facility, which the Y  had worked with DMACC to design.

The two organizations in March had ended discussions after more than a year of negotiations, saying they could not make the financial numbers work.Neither Denson nor YMCA of Greater Des Moines CEO Vernon Delpesce would go into specifics about what brought the two parties back to the table.

“Some of our board members and some of their board members came together and said, ‘Let’s look at this again,’” Delpesce said. “We’re excited about it.”

DMACC’s board of directors on Monday evening passed a resolution to move forward with the student and recreation center project.

The 77,000-square-foot recreation center will adjoin the approximately 88,000-square-foot student activities center to be built between Buildings 4 and 5 on the campus.Attorneys are now hammering out details of a proposed agreement for the YMCA to operate the facility.

“We’re going to spend the next six weeks massaging the language and it will be presented to both boards,” Denson said.

The recreation center will house a gymnasium, two dance/exercise studios, three racquetball courts, a weight area and a Spin area. There will be a cold-water competition pool as well as a warm-water pool with some lanes and a therapy pool for a new physical therapy assistant program.