Three Lodi athletic clubs to close
Two Twin Arbors clubs and Fitness Works will keep operating until Nov. 30
Twin Arbors Athletic Club on Thursday announced that all three Lodi locations will close on Nov. 30, although the clubs will continue their regular operations until them.
In a letter sent to members on Thursday, general manager Dennis Kaufman said the Lodi clubs will close due to “aging facilities and other business conditions,” and their nearest affiliated club is the Laguna Creek Racquet Club in Elk Grove.
Spare Times Clubs — Twin Arbors’ parent company — currently operates three facilities in Lodi: Twin Arbors Athletic Club, a swim club on South Hutchins Street, Twin Arbors Tennis Club on Cochran Road and Fitness Works on West Lockeford Street.
Gavin Russo, corporate marketing director for Spare Times, could not be reached for comment.
Jill Kelsey, who has been an instructor at Twin Arbors for 26 years, said she was informed about the clubs’ closing in a letter on Thursday morning.
“I’m shocked,” Kelsey said. “I don’t have any place to teach. I can’t teach on the city course, because I’d have to get permission from the city. After Nov. 30th, my teaching will be done, at least in the area. At the present time, not planning to go up to Sacramento or Elk Grove, because I don’t want to travel. So I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Outside of Fitness Works on Thursday evening, Lodian Elizabeth Summers said she was disappointed to learn that Twin Arbors will close its Lodi clubs, adding that she and her family had been customers for the past 20 years.
“Our summer activity is going to the pool, so now we’re going to have to find somewhere else to swim,” Summers said.
Acampo resident Lisa Graci was also upset to hear that Twin Arbors will close its doors, she said, as she and her family have been members periodically for several years.
“I joined again last year and lost 45 pounds through their water aerobics program,” Graci said. “I take my kids swimming there every night and they’ve lost weight, too.”
Graci said no other athletic clubs in Lodi allow children to swim at times when she can take her own children due to her work schedule, and that she cannot drive 25 minutes each way to the Elk Grove location every time she and her family want to swim.
“I tried to call their corporate office, but they wouldn’t let me talk to the president,” Graci said. “My stepdaughter is going to be out of a job.”
Kelsey coaches the Lodi High boys and girls tennis teams, which play their matches at the Cochran Road facility. The girls’ season is almost over, but the boys play in the spring, and Kelsey said she doesn’t know where that team will play, but it won’t be at Lodi High, because she feels the courts are in disrepair and are an injury hazard.
“I am very, very sad for the tennis teams. Myself, I can take care of myself, but I feel very sad for the girls and boys tennis teams,” Kelsey said. “And I feel bad for the members who have been members from the get-go, when it was Sun West. Now their livelihood is being yanked out from under them.”