My colleague Brian Wasson provides the details of the agreement and how it came together in a story on Page 6A.

Everything about this package looks good. That an aging, money-losing but much-loved community institution survives is just one benefit.

The county is buying the 7.4-acre property on Chapel Hill Road for the bargain price of $250,000 and will invest $8 million in a renovation.

When that's done, the Y will live on in part of the building, and the rest will become a public Montessori magnet middle school for 300 students.

Have you priced new public schools lately? Under normal school-building procedures, $8 million doesn't get you much. Typically a new school costs three or four times that.

So high praise to the county, the school system and the YMCA organization for finding a way to make it work.

But a whole lot of credit also must go to the Committee to Save the Lakewood Y, which sounded the alarm a year ago when the shutdown seemed inevitable and whose members worked hard to bring others to the table. The power of a mobilized neighborhood can be great. Let's all remember that.

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Speaking of really old neighborhood groups, the Watts Hospital-Hillandale Neighborhood Association is launching the its centennial celebration with a home tour today (Saturday) from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Back in the streetcar era, this neighborhood and Lakewood were Durham's first suburbs.