By SARAH E. MORAN Staff Writer

WEST GOSHEN - Pancoast & Clifford is the general contractor and construction manager for the Norma Ciccarone Family Center, otherwise known as the new West Chester Area YMCA on Airport Road, just off Paoli Pike.

The project is currently valued at $15.6 million, said S. Franklin "Frank" Pancoast III, president of the 12-year-old commercial construction company here.

Currently, according to Chris Clifford, Pancoast & Clifford vice president, workers are moving earth and removing stumps at the nearly 15-acre site, Footings will be poured in mid-August and ground-breaking is scheduled for September.

The new YMCA, comprised of 80,000 square feet, two stories, the first-ever outdoor recreation facilities for a YMCA in the area and 340 parking spaces, is scheduled to open by fall 2008. The architectural firm of Bernardon Haber Holloway in Kennett Square designed the entire complex - the brick and stucco building and its two-story glass atrium, plus the outdoor pool area, playground and family and group gathering pavilions.

Among the unusual structural aspects of the project is the 100-foot timber trusses that will support the roof atop the three indoor pools. (One of the three is actually a separate diving well, Pancoast explained.)

"Trusses are usually 20 to 30 feet long, so using these will be a challenge," he said. The partners' goal is to erect steel girders by winter "so that we can work inside and underneath when bad weather comes," according to Clifford. "At the peak, we expect to have 100 workmen there."

The partners and their 30 employees are well-versed in what it takes to build a YMCA.

One of their first big projects upon the company's formation in 1995 was to add the gym and fitness areas to the current YMCA in West Chester. Then they built the Lionville Community and Kennett Area YMCAs (plus two additions at the latter), both projects commencing in 1997.

They also converted the Kennett community pool to the Kennett YMCA pool a few years ago. Other recent building projects include the four-story, 40,000-square-foot Darlington Commons building in West Chester, soon to be home to the two-level Landmark Americana restaurant plus other businesses; replacing the glass skin of a SunGard Data Systems building in the Great Valley Corporate Center, East Whiteland, with a new glass-and-brick exterior, three new DNB First bank branches and the new 110,000-square-foot Wellington Hall Nursing Home on Boot Road, East Goshen.

It took the two partners - both with engineering degrees, Pancoast's from Bucknell University and Clifford's from Penn State - several years to "get traction in the marketplace," Pancoast said late last week.

"We put our money in the bank and watched it disappear the first few years we were in business."

Things are much rosier today for Pancoast & Clifford today; its two owners expect the company to gross more than $40 million this year.

The 51-year-old Pancoast, who lives in East Bradford, comes from a long lineage of builders; his grandfather and father were both in the residential and commercial construction business.

As for Clifford, 41, a Pocopson resident, he is the first member of his family to venture into the construction business.

To contact staff writer Sarah E. Moran, send an e-mail to smoran@dailylocal.com.