Fitness Club to Close due to Foreclosure

Posted on October 6th, 2009 by Samanta Parks

klines-fitness

A fitness center which has been around for three decades and was a major Arnold social hub is going to close soon when the bank forecloses the property.

This business was opened by Patti and Pat Kline in the year 1981 and was built from nothing but scratch on two acres right next to the shopping center of Meadowmont, eventually expanding into the Klines fitness club of Meadowmont, an entire complex with featured a swimming pool, racquetball and tennis courts, outdoor gazebos for parties, as well as regular weight rooms, steam rooms, spas and classrooms. Klines has always been a business run by the family, with the two daughters of the couple oftentimes helping out whenever it was needed.

Klines has hosted hiking clubs, organized trips for kayaking for decades was the site of a beauty salon, restaurant and practice for physical therapy.

The friends of this Klines Fitness Club are currently raising money in order to buy equipment for the gym before the place gets foreclosed. The goal would be to donate great to a high school which serves Arnold.

Sherry Piatt was a loyal and longtime customer that cried the minute she heard about the gym closing. She felt that this gym was better than any one you could find within Santa Barbara, the place where she lived for almost three decades. Piatt credits the services that Klines offered, including the physical therapist, for allowing her to get over her back injuries. She couldn’t believe that such a high quality club could exist in such a small town when she first moved there.

The quality of Klines’, however, was not bale to protect it from the changing circumstances or ill-timed loans. Pat Kline stated that his wife was planning to sell their business soon to retire anyway. Therefore, several years ago, he removed a loan of $250,000 in order to renovate the buildings and swimming pool – things he believed could turn the property much more attractive and therefore salable.

But that’s when the recession decided to hit. A lot of people within Arnold’s huge sector of real estate ended up canceling their memberships because of this. The many retirees of the area cut back, as well, while alleged cabin members – the ones that signed up for only three months in the summer – also vanished. Kline stated that the paying tenants – the physical therapist, restaurant and beauty salon – left, as well. Back then, taking loans seemed like the most sensible move to make in the business. Their physical therapist stayed with them for almost three decades, just like their beauty parlor.

Yet ripples out of the residential bubble collapse of real estate still him them. Their house was lost because of everything. The gym’s final operation day is looming, sending more than a thousand members to search for new places to work out at. However, loyal and longtime customers state that they won’t miss exercising; it’s so much more than that. Klines wasn’t merely a center for fitness. In fact, it was the place where people could go, no matter how old they were. Even constituents would talk to each other there about their problems.