Changes in Area Health Clubs

5/30/24

Dear Members,

There are two recent events that affect health club activity in our Ballard neighborhood.  One of those is the local Fitness 19 club that closed its doors on April 15th. I learned this was going to happen just 10 days prior to the closure. Fitness 19 members received a letter stating they were closing, and all the memberships were converted to LA Fitness. From my understanding, the Fitness 19 members will continue to pay the low Fitness 19 monthly rate for 6 months and then it is up to LA Fitness to change that rate.

Since the Fitness 19 closure, we have had a bit of an uptick in memberships, but nothing like LA Fitness on April 15 when they were given over 2000 additional members.

The other significant event is the announcement that Mark Durall will be leaving Olympic Athletic Club. Mark has been the General Manager of OAC for over 23 years and has been the primary driver in building OAC to what it is today. The ownership of OAC changed in the past few years and that ownership recently decided to make a General Manager change. When I purchased BHC over 10 years ago, OAC was the competitor down the street that had a much different environment than our club. I cannot remember what triggered Mark and I meeting for the first time, but I believe it was a bit before COVID entered our lives. Prior to COVID, I had also met Justin Young, the GM and Owner of Flow Fitness. Flow has locations at Fremont and South Lake Union. Before COVID, my relationship with both Mark and Justin was light in nature and we did not communicate often.

That all changed with COVID.  The responsibility of guiding a health club through that abyss was overwhelming.  We started communicating daily to get us through the COVID quagmire.  We needed to learn how to navigate the closure rules, how to disinfect everything constantly, how to apply for new government assistance programs, how to help our employees navigate unemployment, etc.  With all of that, we really depended on our group to survive what COVID threw at the health club industry.  Since the turmoil of that COVID era, the three of us have typically met at least once a month to share our experiences running our health clubs.  Our group of three has been a great benefit to me and I believe the same with Mark and Justin.

With all that said, I’ll miss the working companionship with Mark and want to state how thankful I am for his help and friendship in our common roles of running a health club.

Sincerely,

Pat Gilbrough
Owner, General Manager
Ballard Health Club
pat@ballardhealthclub.com