We are moving... by we, I mean our business (My Gym Children's Fitness Center) and by moving, I mean a few doors down in the same plaza. BUT, we are so excited for this amazing opportunity! We will have a brand new facility by this summer! Fresh new paint, new carpet, new layout (smaller lobby, bigger gym floor/play area), a bigger storage room, a water fountain (instead of a water dispenser and cups = $$), a separate office (instead of in the storage room), and a bigger window storefront/better visibility from the parking lot and road.
We have kept this so quiet from our friends and members at My Gym because of the emotional journey this past year has been, but we had to let the "cat out of the bag" today during a class when 5 construction workers came in to look around flashing their big blueprints around and taking pictures. Contractors and Architects have been in and out for the past month, but they've always popped in during down-time or a break in our schedule for us to keep it a secret. Things have really sped up this past week and we are busting with excitement.
To explain the 'emotional journey' I mentioned earlier, let's start from the top...
The beginning of February 2010, our landlord took us to lunch to tell us that another tenant wanted our corner space and that they were going to move My Gym down a few doors. We were shocked, but tried to embrace the opportunity... almost too much. We had corporate make our new floor plan and we estimated the moving costs high and then added additional money for the "inconvenience" of relocating. Corporate was trying to make us profit from the plaza having to move us. We kinda took the stand that we weren't happy about moving because of the many branding years My Gym had from being in the corner spot of the plaza. The truth was, however, we really did want a new facility and that was very evident emotion wise when the deal fell through Summer 2010. We later found out that it didn't make sense for our landlord to give us our expensive build out just for another tenant to move in our space and nothing go in theirs.
We had put so much thought and planning into this possible move. It felt like such a waste of time. However, all those thoughts sparked other ideas about how moving My Gym out of our corner location might actually benefit our business. We soon started looking into empty retail spaces in the next plaza over. We looked at a total of 4 different spaces. We fell in love with one that would have been perfect to move the gym to, only to be bullied by that Realtor and landlord. Even with corporate on our side, it was hard to negotiate and play 'hard-ball' with business men being (and looking) so young like we are.
Once we put both these possible opportunities behind us, we were content with staying in our current space and just upgrading a few things. We needed to invest in new carpet, paint, and remodel our lobby. It sounded like a compromising plan, but the funds never came to be able to make our improvements.
Our 5-year lease ran up for our current space in November 2010. We told them that we would re-sign a 1-year lease in hopes that we would relocate after that year (instead of updating the current space). This is when we heard another deal was in the works with our plaza. They said that they were interested in moving us again (this time to a bigger space farther down, closer to the road) because a undisclosed store was going to move to the plaza. They needed 5 storefronts (ours, 3 empty spaces next to us, and a bead store) to be turned into this big chain. We knew that anything that needed 8,400 square feet would be great traffic to the plaza.
We have agreed, and have turned in all accurate cost this time. We have, once again, a new layout plan, and it is even better than the first two we drew up. We won't make any extra money from this move because it is honestly not going to be an inconvenience. It is truly a blessing to have a brand new facility built out for you just the way you want it (all the way down to picking what paint color goes on what wall and which way the doors will swing)... all for free!
To bring us up to today, blueprints have been handed to us and the only thing we are waiting on is the construction schedule with finalized dates. We were told that Tuesday Morning (the now disclosed store) needed to be moved in by May 7th, but that's going to get pushed back. They are going to move the bead store first, then start the store build out on the 4 spaces next to us while constructing our new space. Finally, they will move us over and then finish the construction for Tuesday Morning. We are hoping to be in by June 1st when our Summer Camp starts, but we shouldn't have to have any down (closed) time. Everything will be new, even our swing support system that hangs from the ceiling and hopefully our zip line.
We get to start announcing the relocation to our members starting Monday. We want them to know that we are only moving about 11 doors down before any rumors start about us relocating somewhere far. The goal is to get people just as excited as we are so they remain enrolled (even through summer which is usually when a lot of cancellations come in). We will soon be joining the Arvada Chamber of Commerce to hopefully have a ribbon-cutting ceremony and a huge 're-opening' event. We hope and pray that this turns out to be a beautiful facility like we've always wanted and that the "new" My Gym becomes the talk of the town!
