‘Not just a health club, a community:’ Petaluma’s Redwood Club closes

Another independent gym is going out of business in Petaluma, this time due to high rent cost.|

The high cost of rent has forced the closure of the Redwood Club, one of the last independent gyms in Petaluma.

Sept. 29 will be the last day the club is open, and the 1,500 members have been offered discounted memberships at City Sports Club, said Redwood Club owner Susan Jansson.

“We had a lot of fun,” said Jansson, who owns eight other clubs in Humboldt County. “It is sad, but the cost of doing business kept going up. Primarily it was the rent and our landlord was not willing to negotiate.”

The club was founded in 1986 by brothers Mike and Gary Ramatici next to the Orchard Supply Hardware on North McDowell Boulevard. In 1991, they moved it to its current location in a business park on Southpoint Boulevard.

Five years ago, as the family was looking to get out of the business, Jansson met Mike Ramatici at a fitness convention and they struck up a deal. She said she made big improvements at the club in the past five years, including redoing the locker rooms, updating the flooring and paint, bringing in new equipment and adding new programs.

She said that she tried to find another home for the club and even offered to buy the building, but couldn’t come to an agreement.

“We did everything we could,” she said. “These decisions are hard to make.”

The Redwood Club is the latest casualty of an increase in big corporate gyms in Petaluma, including City Sports and Planet Fitness. The family-owned Petaluma Valley Athletic Club closed in 2017, citing competition from big box gyms that offered lower membership rates.

Jansson said the Redwood Club was able to diversify its offerings and wasn’t in direct competition with the larger gyms. She stressed that it was the rent, not competition that is causing the closure.

“Their niche is different from ours,” she said of bigger gyms. “We are original. We don’t have canned programming. We can customize a program for whatever the member wants.”

For many of the members, the news of the closure was a shock. Beverly Alexander, 74, who has been a member on and off for 20 years, said many elderly Petalumans appreciated the ease of working out at the Redwood Club.

“The thing I have always been touched by is the sense of community,” she said. “I’ve never felt that before. It’s not just a health club, it’s a community. The loss of the Redwood Club is a real blow, especially to the older parts of Petaluma.”

Jansson said she is trying to find work for her 30 employees, six of whom work full time. She hoped some of the trainers could go to City Sports or her other gyms in Humboldt County.

For Doug Hulsey, the closure means the end of a major life chapter. The 35-year-old has been working at the gym since 2001 when he got his first job as a senior in high school.

Now the manager of the Redwood Club, Hulsey said the hardest part will be the breakup of a community of members, many of whom have been with the club for more than two decades.

“There are at least 100 members who have been here more than 20 years,” he said. “It really is a community from the staff on down. Some of the people have known me since I was 17. It’s hard to explain the depth of it.”

Hulsey said he worked with Jansson to try and keep the club open.

“I’m disappointed that we were not able to find a solution to keep the club intact. We looked at every option,” he said. “It’s not going to hit me until I lock the door (on the last day). That’s going to be a super sad moment.”

(Contact Matt Brown at matt.brown@arguscourier.com.)

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