The YMCA and Martha’s Vineyard Arena plan to merge on Dec. 31, leaders for both organizations confirmed this week.

The decision was reached with a vote from both boards.

“It’s exciting. It’s big for the Island I think, and exciting for the Y,” YMCA board president Fain Hackney said Friday following an announcement.

Located alongside one another across from the regional high school on the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road, the two nonprofits have been in talks about a merger since 2016. That year they began working together on a $4 million capital campaign to renovate the ice rink and to merge management, sharing administrative staff and services like bookkeeping. Major renovations at the ice rink were completed last year.

Mr. Hackney said the two boards used the time to align their missions and efforts and reach a common understanding. By the end of this year, the ice arena board will dissolve and three of its members will join the board of the YMCA, Mr. Hackney said. The members are arena president Geoghan Coogan, Jeanne Ogden and Joe Merry.

Mr. Hackney said the merger will help further extend the administrative resources of the YMCA to the arena.

“We bring something to the table in terms of financial management and operational management and fundraising,” he said. “We can use the same people to help with the rink. Financially, it makes a lot of sense.”

The ice arena began as a hand-built open-air skating rink in the 1970s, and was enclosed in the 1980s. Today it serves hundreds of Islanders through ice hockey, figure skating and other programs. The arena is a comparatively smaller organization than the YMCA. The YMCA’s gross annual revenues are about $3.5 million while the arena’s gross annual revenues are about $600,000, Mr. Hackney said.

He said Islanders should not expect many immediate changes, and that leaders at the YMCA are keeping the affordability of the rink as a priority. “It’s still going to be a community rink run for benefit of the community,” he said. “The way it always has been.”