Dynamic Health and Fitness is moving from its home at Royal City Centre - to make room for Walmart store that is set to open in the mall - to the New Westminster SkyTrain station.
Owners Alison and Jeff Humphries expect to shut down their Uptown operation by the beginning of December and open at their new, 12,000-square-foot one-level centre at the Shops of New West in January 2014.
"We've secured a spot down at the New Westminster SkyTrain station at Plaza 88 on the third level, right beside Starbucks," says Jeff, who opened the fitness centre in 1996.
The couple are making a full-circle move by bouncing back downtown. They started their business at Columbia Square Plaza before they made the move to the west side of Royal City Centre.
They had a 10-year lease with Royal City centre but exercised an option to move out to make way for a new Walmart store, which is reportedly moving into the space (this has yet to be confirmed by Royal City Centre management).
The couple looked for months to find the ideal location - one with enough space to accommodate their needs. It proved tough to find, Jeff says. While they sweated it out, searching for the right spot, a leasing agent approached them and asked if they wanted to move into the Plaza 88 spot. A crucial factor for the Humphries was to get free parking for their clients - a feat they managed to achieve.
Along with the parking, Jeff likes that the location is central. "A lot of our members live down around the Quay in those new buildings that they've built in the last five years or so, and the whole downtown of New West it's kind of revitalized in the last few years," he says, adding that so far clients have been positive about the move.
And they probably be even more pleased when the fitness centre opens and they see the $200,000 worth of new cardio equipment in the downtown space. (Dynamic Fitness is also keeping its ladies' only fitness area.) Jeff also notes that the swanky new digs and equipment won't mean a boost to the prices, which he says won't change.
"If anything, they'll go down," he adds. "We are probably going to start our pre-sale at the beginning of November, and we'll run our pre-sale for three months."
The move is a bitter-sweet one for the team at Dynamic because they never really planned to leave the Uptown location.
"It's not like we are being sort of pushed out or kicked out," Jeff says. "These are terms and what we'd done here was agreed by both parties to the best interest of both parties.
We've got a great business. We look forward to the future. It just happens that our great business and great future will be taking place at another location downtown."
