Posted April 20, 2016 10:00 pm by

Gym owner says big fitness business forced her to close
When KTW photographer Dave Eagles arrived at Club Spych Health and Fitness yesterday morning, he found owner Tarah Jordan doing her best to put on a strong face, but succumbing to emotion when longtime member Sylvia MacKenzie offered condolences. Jordan opened the gym 10 years ago and on Friday (April 15) it closed for good, unable to compete with big-business gyms that are flocking to Kamloops.

Gym owner Tarah Spychka on Thursday (Apr. 14), one day before her business shuts down after 10 years.

Tarah Jordan will miss the friends she made at Club Spych. Dave Eagles/KTW

Tarah Jordan’s mascara was running down her face as she ripped up floor mats at Club Spych Health and Fitness.

She was dismantling her baby, the Valleyview business she started 10 years ago. With every piece of equipment she dragged out to her dad’s truck went a chunk of her heart.

“It is my family. This gym is my family,” said Jordan, standing outside the Oriole Road building, pausing to wipe away tears and clear her throat. “I would love to have kept it for the rest of my life. My daughter could have taken it over one day. She loves the gym. Unfortunately, because of bigger businesses coming in, bigger gyms, there’s tons of gyms in Kamloops, I just can’t compete with that.”

Club Spych, named after Jordan’s grandfather, Bill Spychka, opened in June 2006 and closed on Friday (April 15), no longer able to make ends meet.

“The bigger businesses are coming in and wiping out the little guys, in a way,” Jordan said.

“They’ve got a lot more money to throw around. The little businesses have to charge a little more to maintain the equipment and the rent and the leases and everything that goes along with it.”

The most recent additions to the Kamloops health-business scene are industry giants Snap Fitness and Anytime Fitness, each having opened their doors this year. Orangetheory Fitness, which has franchises across the globe, is opening soon. All three are located on the South Shore.

They bring with them big advertising dollars, financial backing and marketing power most gyms in Kamloops don’t have, but some local owners aren’t sold on the new guys in town and others are wondering if there are enough clients to go around.

At KTW’s last count, and not including any operations that might have popped up after press deadline, there are more than 20 fitness establishments (not including yoga studios) in Kamloops, which has a population of 90,000.

“I just know the overhead and how expensive it is to run a gym, so it’ll be interesting to see how it all pans out,” said Andrew Watson, part-owner of No Limits Fitness on the North Shore.

“Personally, I don’t know if it’ll support that many on that side of town. When a new gym opens up, a lot of people go and try it for the first year, but we have a lot of people coming back to our gym — a lot. You have to give it that personal touch.”

liberatore_HORIZ_RGB copy

Bianca Liberatore (pictured) and boyfriend Zack Currie own NXL Athletics, a Victoria Street gym that has developed a loyal customer base. Liberatore is keeping tabs on the changing fitness landscape and is sad to see Club Spych go. KTW file photo

That personal touch is something Club Spych had in spades. Clients would wander behind the front desk to hang out with Jordan, who knows most of them by name. Daily gossip was part of the workout routine for many. The gym was also a popular after-school hangout for Valleyview secondary students.

For the less social, it was just a quiet place to train, an unassuming setting for the Average Joe.

No Limits has been a success story since opening three years ago, but Watson is wary of “rumours of other people still sniffing around this town,” and admits the arrival of Steve Nash Fitness World or Club 16 Trevor Linden Fitness might damage business.

“I’ve seen some of their prices as low as $10 a month,” Watson said. “Those ridiculous prices, they can hurt small business owners like us, even though we’re three years old. Anybody can be at risk.”

Bianca Liberatore and Zack Currie, the young couple who started NXL Athletics less than two years ago, focus on customized training and have developed a following at their Victoria Street gym.

They are thrilled with early success, but not blind to what’s happening around them.

“It’d be pretty cocky to say it didn’t worry me at all,” Liberatore said. “It would break my heart to lose my gym. I feel bad for her [Jordan]. It’s a small gym. When the big gyms open up, what can you do?”

Liberatore noted most viable fitness locations in Kamloops focus on niche markets, whether it be cross-fit, 24-hour, elite athletes or ladies-only.

Angela Veltri, who owns Kix 4 Chix, said new kids on the block need to have something that makes them stand out.

“I think with Snap Fitness and Anytime Fitness, they have to have something pretty special to hold peoples’ attention,” said Veltri, who opened the kickboxing gym in 2011. “It’s just like restaurants in Kamloops. They open. They close.

“When you have these franchises come in and they’re big and they don’t cater to the local community, they’re going to be gone unless they build a name for themselves. Kamloops people are fickle about where they go. They’ll drop it and go somewhere else.”

Club Spych was a bare-bones gym, but it knew what it was and so did loyal clients such as Ben Saklofsky, 22, who has been pumping iron there for seven years.

“I was shocked to hear it was closing, at first, and it’s sad because the community here is pretty tight and it’s going to hurt a lot of the people that live close,” Saklofsky said before getting back to his routine, one of the last he enjoyed at Club Spych.

“Everyone knows Tarah pretty well. It’s going to be shitty without it. That’s just what happens in life with business. Bigger business takes away the little ones, but it’s sad to see because Tarah loved this place and it was like her home forever.”

The novelty factor is on the side of the shiny new gyms and they have every chance to prove they, too, can have the personal touch Veltri, Liberatore and Watson say is necessary to survive in Kamloops.

“We talk about goal-setting, do weight measurements and take photos, so it’s more personalized, as opposed to just getting as many people as we can through the door,” Liberatore said.

Joe Caldow, owner of the local Anytime Fitness franchise, was asked if he is worried about the seemingly saturated gym market in Kamloops.

“No, we’re not,” he said. “Anytime Fitness was ranked the No. 1 franchise in the world globally last year and that’s for a very good reason. We cater to everyone. We create a very positive and encouraging culture within the gym.”

The Tournament Capital Centre is taxpayer-subsidized and can offer indoor, outdoor and aquatic services for a lower monthly rate (KTW’s corporate rate is $39) than Club Spych was charging ($44) for its weight-room only facility.

While Caldow refused to provide a ballpark monthly registration fee for Anytime, he said customers can pay anywhere between $0, if they refer five people, to $5,000, if interested in high-end personal-training packages.

But many of the River City’s gyms and fitness clubs charge more than Club Spych and increasingly competitive rates are just one reason for its demise.

“When you think about the cost of commercial space in Kamloops, it’s pretty high,” Veltri said. “You really have to have a lot of people because our population isn’t huge and it’s a challenge to get that many people through the door. That’s unfortunate to hear about Club Spych. They’ve been open for a long time. I know Tarah.”

More established outfits like No Limits have the foundation to survive a small-scale exodus of clients and the financial wherewithal to withstand the loss of those wandering prodigle sons who sometimes return.

Club Spych did not have that luxury and similar smaller gyms might experience comparable struggles, Liberatore said.

“When something new and exciting opens up, people say, ‘Oh, let’s go there instead.’ Everyone just wants the next best thing, but they get bored very easily,” said Liberatore. “Of course it’s going to worry me and put a bit of pressure on, but it’s also good to have good competitors, as well.”

Jordan frantically fielded phone calls on Tuesday, attempting to deal with accountants and sell off equipment, while at the same time dodging boxes and stopping to hug clients — friends who offered condolences.

It took very little to trigger tears.

“To say goodbye to everybody, I thought it would get easier every day, but it’s just getting harder,” said Jordan, who has taken a job working in a warehouse. “It’s really upsetting. Each and every day that I’m coming in is one day closer to the day that I close.

“Hopefully, someone will come out this way and make a gym work. There’s nothing else out here — Valleyview, Dallas,                     Barnhartvale and Juniper.”

Jordan and her family will be fine financially as her husband has a good job. The pain she is feeling does not stem from her pocketbook.

“This place has been everything,” Jordan said. “I liked helping people change their figures and their mentality and everything that went along with it. I was pregnant working in here and my daughter has been raised in the gym. For her, she’s having a really hard time with it. So is my husband and the members. We all are. It’s going to be hard to let go.

“It’s a big family in here.”