(UPDATED 11/2/2019: CAMAS, WA.)
Lacamas Athletic Club has been in the health club and swimming pools business here in Camas for the last 20 years. Owner Denise Croucher has taught literally thousands of kids to swim, and her facility has been used by families and senior citizens for more than 2 decades for aquatic training and recreation. She employs more than 20 people who feed their families with the paychecks they earn at the Club. Some have been with her since the beginning.
Last Monday night during the public comments segment of the Camas City Council meeting, Croucher begged City Councilors to reconsider their position on Prop 2, noting the clear and present danger the new $72M aquatic facility proposed less than 3 miles from her club would create. Her powerful pleas fell on deaf ears, as seen in this video of the meeting. Stone faced and cold, the Councilors sat quietly and pretended to listen.
Video 1
Video 2
Now that the City has finally released the revenue projections for the Camas Aquatic Center, we can see exactly how many "memberships" will need to be sold to keep the operational losses at $850K per year. Failure to reach those member numbers will result in annual losses well over $1M to be borne by taxpayers. More than 2000 members will need to join the proposed $72M facility, and owners of local health and fitness clubs including Croucher's, know exactly what that means.
They'll be left fighting in competition with a new aquatic center that can lose millions of dollars each year, yet never have to close its doors. The unfair competitive advantage the Camas Aquatic Center will enjoy over these long standing businesses is remarkable. And what's worse- the bus that will eventually run over all 20+ health and fitness related companies currently operating in Camas, will be bought, paid for, and driven by the Camas taxpayers.
These advantages smack of unfair competition, say many for-profit club owners and industry observers. However, some city rec center managers say they are not competing with for-profit clubs. They say that the city facilities are primarily there to serve the community. But Rick Caro, president of New York-based consulting company Management Vision, disagrees, saying that city rec centers compete with for-profit clubs just as YMCAs, Jewish Community Centers, corporate in-house facilities and residential facilities do.
Whether or not city rec center managers see their facilities as competition to tax-paying clubs, city rec centers have helped put some for-profits out of business, their owners say. At least three club owners who operated close to Firstenburg in Vancouver were forced to sell or close their clubs since the facility opened in 2007. Ron Feik, owner of the 40-year-old Landover Athletic Club, closed his club to members less than 1 year after Firstenburg opened. In Firstenburg's first month of operation, Feik says his club's membership fell from 3,000 to 500.
“When you lose 55 percent of your revenue the month they open, that kind of says something,” Feik says. “How can you compete with a $25 million facility? You can't.”
Hollie Olson owned Exclusively for Women, a 5,300-square-foot club near Firstenburg. Many issues led her to sell the club, including rising rent, but she says, “Firstenburg was the nail in the coffin.” Exclusively for Women closed less than a year after Firstenburg opened. “A powerful figure with a lot of marketing is going to hurt the smaller independent clubs,” Olson says.
Some for-profit club owners claim that city governments that run the rec centers made decisions that adversely affected for-profit clubs. Feik and other for-profit club owners in Vancouver said the city placed advertisements for Firstenburg in water bills. Feik also said that when he needed to re-build a new sign at his club, the city made him place it parallel to the street rather than perpendicular, which made it harder for passers-by to locate his club.
Dave Miletich, the Vancouver-Clark County (WA) parks and recreation assistant director at the time, said the representatives from the city that worked with Feik about the sign may or may not have known about his club's proximity to Firstenburg. “They certainly didn't do anything intentionally to harm his business,” Miletich says. During the development phases of Firstenburg, Miletich said he heard few objections from for-profit health club owners. In meetings between the city and for-profit owners, the focus was on working together and finding ways not to compete with each other, Miletich said.
How did that work out?
Camas is full of small businesses that pay taxes and employ neighbors today. The proposed $72M aquatic center would threaten many of them. There are currently more than 20 fitness based businesses in Camas, including 8 in the downtown corridor alone. 13 more on the borders of neighboring Vancouver and Washougal.
How long can they survive when the City owned aquatic center/health club can operate a new $72M facility with no mortgage, lose millions of dollars in operations each year without penalty, cut prices and advertise through City mailers with complete impunity- all being funded by the same neighbors trying to save our local small business community?
It is not the job of Camas residents to make sure Lacamas Athletic Club turns a profit or stays in business. But it's clearly not the job of our City government to create and promote an unlevel playing field, where two dozen other small health/fitness businesses die on the vine and close their doors to make sure the Camas Aquatic Center succeeds.
*originally published 10/17/2019