Norwich ― Most of the speakers at Thursday’s groundbreaking ceremony at the former YMCA on Main Street talked of playing basketball, taking swimming lessons and attending pool parties as kids when the building was hopping with activity.

But the YMCA closed suddenly under financial woes in 2009, and since then, the only activity has been police, fire and building officials responding to blight complaints, boarding up and re-boarding up the derelict building.

“For the longest time, people have been wishing hoping and wanting for something new to come here,” said Kevin Brown, president of Norwich Community Development Corporation. “For a long time people have wished this YMCA building could become something. Could it be saved, modernized, destroyed? Something. Today we’re here to do something about it.”

More than 50 people gathered Thursday in the crumbling parking lot for a groundbreaking ceremony in front of the building at the end of the sprawling property, painted with a large faded Y.

Brown joked that when Police Chief Patrick Daley asked how his department could help with the event, he answered simply traffic control, because, “for the first time in a long time, there will be cars coming in and out of this parking lot.”

Mattern Construction of Baltic was the sole bidder for the property two years ago after the city took ownership of the abandoned property.

The company’s $5 million project calls for renovating most of the building to become its new office headquarters and accompanying commercial space. A brew pub and six to eight apartments are also planned for a portion of the property.

The project came together with a combination of state, federal and local grants. The state Department of Economic and Community Development spearheaded the funding with a $2 million Community Challenge grant. Norwich provided a $400,000 grant through its federal American Rescue Plan Act grant. And to cover a gap in funding, the Capitol Region Council of Governments in the Hartford area provided a federal environmental cleanup grant that it did not need.

Eric Mattern, president of Mattern Construction, told the gathering that he and his father, George Mattern, were also YMCA members years ago.

Mattern said the environmental cleanup should begin soon, and the building targeted for a brew pub is expected to be renovated first and open by next summer. Other commercial spaces will follow before Mattern moves its headquarters there by early 2025.

The project is part of a broad downtown revitalization taking place along Main Street and up lower Broadway, much of it boosted by federal American Rescue Plan Act dollars. Directly across from the YMCA, the Hotel Callista, a 24-room boutique hotel, will open soon in the former Elks Club building. The groundbreaking audience was invited to tour the building after Thursday’s ceremony.

A few blocks down Main Street, ARPA funds completed the money needed to renovate the long-vacant Reid & Hughes Building into 17 apartments, and at the opposite end of Main Street from the YMCA, Norwich Luxury Apartments is converting two historic five-story buildings into 42 apartments to be called Water Street Lofts in an $8.8 million project.

“This is adaptive reuse,” DECD Deputy Commissioner Robert Hotaling said at the YMCA groundbreaking. “We hope that this is just one of the anchors as we go across this community. There are great expectations and outcomes we expect to come from this project and others. I’m really looking forward to coming back and enjoying that beer.”

c.bessette@theday.com