The desire to provide sports opportunities for children and adults is not enough.

Over lunch on Tuesday, a group of north Utah County business leaders strategized about how to bring YMCA to the Pleasant Grove-American Fork area.

"While I think it's important that our primary goal is to provide opportunity for kids, I think it's important to recognize too that you need to know how to run a business," said YMCA capital campaign chairman Cole Kelley. "We have some very successful people involved in our organization."

The owners of Kids Universe, Ultimate Sports and Rocky Mountain Wrestling have joined the YMCA board and attended the lunch.

At the end of this month, board members will kick off a campaign to raise millions toward a YMCA facility. A conceptual plan for the complex handed out at Tuesday's meeting included an aquatics center, fieldhouse, ice oval/stadium, gymnasium, beach volleyball court, rock climbing walls, gymnastics gym, fitness gym, day care, fields for baseball and soccer and basketball court, as well as six shops, three restaurants and a large sporting goods store and park.

Land for the facility would be donated by a local developer and would be on 2000 West in Pleasant Grove, but organizers must still raise millions to get the complex off the ground. They must also decide exactly what amenities the complex would include, which will dictate how much money must be raised.

An average YMCA costs between $12 million and $14 million to build, said Carol Chomjak of the YMCA board.

The complex could be built in phases as funding allowed, Kelley said.

"In this valley you have parents running from building to building, dropping their kids off for things," he said. "We thought it would be neat to have a sports complex in one place."

A YMCA is needed in Utah Valley because city recreation programs are always stretched, said Debbie Lauret of the American Fork economic development department and director of the American Fork Chamber of Commerce.

"This is an awesome project," she said of the YMCA. "This is what nonprofits should do, and cities should get out the business of recreation. It is actually a large drain on their resources."

North Utah County should choose to solve the lack of space in recreation programs by building a YMCA because "YMCA has such a great foundation," said board member Rachel Bradshaw. "They are the largest nonprofit in the nation, their motto is to build strong kids, communities and families, they have Christian principles, and it's just a perfect fit for our valley."

YMCA would provide "every program you can think of for children, adults, even seniors, and they have the programs set up so we don't have to reinvent the wheel, but then we run it and we can offer what our community wants," she said.

Organizers want to compliment, not compete with, existing city recreation facilities "so that we work together to create something that fills a need that perhaps recreation centers and programs are not doing," Kelley said.

Other YMCAs around the country have been built using a mixture of private and corporate donations, government funding and grants, said board member Steve Black.

"There is a strong relationship between YMCA and the government," he said. "Local YMCAs are responsible for doing fund raising on their own, partnering up with a lot of different entities, including government agencies and corporations. Collectively they are able to do something great."

Volunteers are needed, Kelley said.

"We want to get leaders involved, people who have the pulse of the needs of the community as we move forward with the project," he said. "We need to get people involved in helping us with construction donations and building ideas."

For information about the proposed YMCA, or to donate or volunteer, call 830-0738.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page B8.