$26 million athletic club set to open in Broomfield

BROOMFIELD — A new 150,000-square-foot athletic center in Broomfield with a view of the Flatirons will be the largest club in Colorado when it opens Oct. 17, according to its developer.

While the $26 million facility at 300 Summit Blvd. might be state of the art in terms of its technical capacity, the club’s manager wants it to be an oasis for its guests.

“Our goal is for our members to have a home away from home,´ said General Manager David Coffey, who joined Chicago-based Lakeshore Athletic Clubs in April. “This will be their Camelot. They will leave everything out there and come in here to find a professional facility with a personal feel that is very high touch.”

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With more than 700 members signed up as of August, the demand for the athletic club appears to be very high. Initial marketing efforts have focused on families, and more than 60 percent of the membership is made up of that demographic.

“I think what has happened here is that the immediate area has come in and been a very pleasant surprise for us. The family audience is very good news. It is an area that has been absorbed, and now we are stretching into the corporate areas. We are getting a very good response from our corporate neighbors,” Coffey said.

The 10,000-square-foot “Kidshore,” a club designed for children’s fitness, is the primary area that will ensure the participation of families. Kidshore is separate from the rest of club while still allowing parents and children to participate together. Amenities include a separate entrance, monitored facilities, an outdoor water play area, a children’s lounge with computers, and a child-care center for infants and toddlers.

“Members will be able to bring their children through, drop them off, and then go down the hall into their own club. It will be pretty special,” Coffey said.

That does not mean that the adult section is a mere afterthought. The high-end facility includes a day spa, an indoor 25-meter Olympic-size pool, an outdoor pool and play area, basketball courts, and rooftop tennis courts. Another destination amenity is the 50-foot professional-level climbing wall in Lakeshore’s main lobby designed by Boulder-based Monolithic Sculptures, which also built the pinnacle at the Denver REI store. The wall, now the largest freestanding climbing wall in Colorado, includes a rock-climbing wall for both experts and beginners.

Other recreation opportunities abound in the area including county recreational centers, recreation facilities at the Omni Interlocken Resort and onsite gymnasiums at larger companies such as Sun Microsystems Inc. in Broomfield and Storage Technology Corp. in nearby Louisville. However, Lakeshore insists that their facility is worth their opening offer of $79 per month with a $50 sign-up fee.

“Most companies have a gym, and that is exactly what it is: a gym,´ said Janet Long, vice president of development and marketing for Lakeshore. “What we’ve developed is a lifestyle club so that a person can come away from the corporation, relax by the pool, take a sauna, or work out. It’s a completely different environment.” Coffey agreed that Lakeshore will be different enough to attract a separate clientele.

“First of all, anything can be competition, but I am sure we are not going after the same niche,” Coffey said of nearby club facilities. “I feel we will have a different membership than the recreational departments or the Omni. I think it will be a pleasant surprise for members that the services and the feeling that they get from this club will match the facility.”

Construction of the athletic club began last August with a groundbreaking ceremony attended by Broomfield Mayor Karen Stuart as well as the top echelons of Lakeshore’s management group. It was designed by the Denver architectural firm of Ohlson Lavoie Collaborative and built by Pinkard Construction. In addition to the new Broomfield club, Lakeshore owns and operates a number of other clubs, including two in Chicago and a new Reebok Sports Club on Canary Wharf in London.

Coffey, who spent more than 25 years working in the athletic club industry with the Club Corporation of America, will be hiring more than 200 people to staff the facility and will put up to 75 staff members on the floor at any one time.

“As the membership grows, that number will increase,” Coffey said of his staffing estimates. “We will monitor those numbers closely and will determine our staffing based on the needs of the membership. I suppose I should not have been surprised, but I have been very pleased with the quality of personnel that are out here. It has been great to find that there is a lot of experience and a lot of degreed individuals.”

Overall, the owners are pleased with the reception they have gotten in the Front Range.

“We did the demographic studies and did our homework to find that this area was under served for the kind of world-class facility that we offer,´ said Lakeshore’s founder, Jordan Kaiser. “This is a style of business culture that we developed in our Chicago clubs where we’ve dealt with families over the years. We have learned how to treat this kind of community.”