In Rotation 18 | Art of the State 19 | Foodfinds 20 | Fi¬m 22
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Is the friendly neighborhood gym a thing of the past? With New Year’s resolutions in full swing, many people are newly resolved to lose weight lose and get in shape. by Laura Davis Following the start of a new year, gyms famously see a spike in both new memberships, and fuller class sizes of existing members. But this time around, one local gym won’t be seeing any increases. Not due to resolutionists choosing to focus on something like, say, going green in 2013 instead, but because they will be closing their doors after almost 15 New Years past. Fitness Millennium, which heard the whirling sound of treadmills for the final time on Dec. 27, is choosing to lay its weights to rest after battling a multitude of obstacles throughout its solid run—all while keeping good form, of course. Kit Brady, sole owner since June of 2005, took over from his business partner Leslee Bender, developer of the workout gem the Bender Ball. Brady says that what once was a thriving little aerobic oasis, Fitness Millennium has been seeing problems arise since the economy crashed. “As much as my core members love this gym, it also takes another layer outside of them,” Brady says of customers other than his regular fitness fanatics, whose average age hovers in the 40-plus zone, and many of which have been members for up to 10 years. “Since 2007, when the recession hit, that outside layer shrunk. I went from 575 members to about 420. And I saw a constant drop in my members every month since—especially through the summer of this year and the fall.” With the opening of larger, corporate money-backed gyms coming into play as well, Brady says he got pushed further and further off the field. “I couldn’t recruit, whatever I tried … Boutique, neighborhood gyms like mine are fading. It’s kind of the
end of an era. In their places are going the discount gyms, the 24-hour access gyms, places like that I’m competing against.” Fitness Millennium saw a membership deficit that ultimately created a financial situation that wasn’t exactly golden—and led to occasional months when Brady says his rent payments saw the backlash. The perks of being a small business in a community-oriented neighborhood, is that occasionally one can land in the hands of a local property owner who understands the plight of the little guy, and is willing to perhaps, on occasion, overlook a couple of late payments. However, when Fitness Millennium’s shopping center went to auction earlier this year, and was then put into the hands of an out-of-state property management group, Texasbased C3 Capital, that leniency changed, according to Brady. “After the economy went down, I couldn’t always make payments on time in full but the previous owners were very understanding,” Brady says. But when the gym’s lease came up for renewal the end of March, the lease negotiations began, and taking into consideration the ups and downs of its financial rollercoaster—without the benefit of having a local take on the gym sticking it out for close to 15 years thus far—certain stipulations came into play which ultimately led to Brady’s decision to unplug the treadmills for the gym’s final lap of 2012. “You do a little bit of a dance when you do lease negations,” Brady says. “We did that for a few months. But they wanted me to do a few things I wasn’t comfortable with doing, and I think they were a little strong in some of their requests.” Those included requests such as an additional $4,000 security deposit (on top of the current $2,000) and the signing of a personal guarantee versus a corporate guarantee—a signing that would put personal assets, along with the business itself, up for grabs if it failed. A representative of
MILLENNIUM BIG HE ADERS GIZA 25pt 25k SMALL HEADERS GIZA 15pt 55k (60% OF BIG HE AD)
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JANUARY 3, 2013
