Philadelphia Sports Club’s Ardmore location to close very soon.

Philadelphia Sports Club’s Ardmore location to close very soon.Over a decade after the Philadelphia Sports Club first made its home in the former Ardmore Theater on Lancaster Avenue in Ardmore, the high-end athletic facility will close its doors mid-summer.

Lisa Hufcut, media relations spokesperson with Town Sports International, LLC, parent company of PSC, confirmed the information: “Yes, the PSC Ardmore location will be closing on July 31,” Hufcut wrote in an email Wednesday evening, July 3. No further information on the future of the Ardmore facility or that of TSI’s other locations could be obtained prior to the long July 4 holiday weekend.

In addition to PSC in Philadelphia and its suburbs, TSI also operates clubs in New York (NYSC), Boston (BSC) and Washington (WSC).

According to the website cinematreasure.org which references a Main Line Times article, the former Ardmore Theater at 34 W. Lancaster Ave., Ardmore, opened in 1926. It was designed by architect Clarence Woolmington in the Baux-Arts style. The theater’s use went from vaudeville to silent films to “talkies” and by 1941, it was operated by Warner Bros. Circuit Management. It remained a movie theater until it was closed by United Artists in 2000.

The Lower Merion Conservancy put the theater on its 2001 top ten list of endangered buildings. Following its business model of repurposing closed and/or troubled historic movie theaters, PSC’s parent company, Town Sports International, took over the Ardmore Theater after trying unsuccessfully to acquire the Bryn Mawr Theater. That theater was purchased by a non-profit and saved as the Bryn Mawr Film Institute.

In 2002, after TSI purchased and totally gutted the Ardmore Theater, it reopened as the Philadelphia Sports Club. The spacious, two-level Ardmore gym is one of several PSC locations: St. Davids and Chalfont are listed as suburban sites on mysportsclubs.com as well as Market Street, Rodin Place and Society Hill in the City of Philadelphia.

Attempts Wednesday to obtain comments from management at the Ardmore PSC location regarding the status of members, employees and the building’s future were unsuccessful. Main Line Media News was referred to Lisa Hufcut with the corporate office.