PORT TOWNSEND — When the Port Townsend Athletic Club was required to close its doors one Monday in March, owner Teresa Hoffmann sprang into action.
At first it felt like a mixed blessing, a chance to make lemonade.
The historic building at 229 Monroe St., empty of members, fitness instructors and front-desk staff, underwent one remodeling phase after another.
As spring turned to summer, a few classes were held outside, but the club’s doors remained locked while Hoffmann and a few workers retiled, repainted and resurfaced upstairs and down. They installed lighting in the women’s locker room, laid new decking for the hot tub — and waited.
Hoffmann, 56, took over the Port Townsend Athletic Club, a hulking building that was once a brewery, in 2007, and found she loved the fitness industry.
“What better thing can you sell,” she asked, “than helping people change their lives and feel better about themselves?”
PTAC offered dance classes, yoga, tai chi, a small forest of treadmills, elliptical trainers and weight machines and cross-training sessions such as BodyPump and BodyFlow. Hoffmann loved it all.
But the club stayed shut. Statewide mandates from Gov. Jay Inslee closed fitness clubs and yoga studios to in-person clientele for several weeks, then allowed some to reopen with limited capacity.
Hoffmann chose to stay closed and keep working, adding new, easier-to-clean equipment and researching ways to move old air out and let fresh air in.
“We moved everything, and moved it again,” to allow for social distancing in the cardio and weight rooms.
“You can’t just do part of it,” Hoffmann said.
With the idea of opening a smoothie bar, she moved the front desk and reconfigured the reception area.
Then came November and continuing state restrictions. Hoffmann ran into another downtown business owner whose historic building had been closed more than eight months.
“My friend Rocky,” as in Friedman of the Rose Theatre, could understand what Hoffmann was feeling.
There was no reopening date in sight, but there were steep overhead costs. Friedman encouraged her to try a GoFundMe campaign like he had done for the Rose.
The cinema’s GoFundMe went live back in September and quickly surpassed Friedman’s initial goal of $110,000. In hopes of covering his mortgage, utility and other basic costs over an extended period, he raised that to $160,000.
Rose Theatre supporters have donated north of $188,000 as of this week.
Hoffmann was reluctant to ask people for money. But with her own costs rising and the pandemic deepening, she stepped into the crowdfunding pool.
“This continued closure of our operations has threatened the ability for PTAC to reopen when the health restrictions are lifted,” she writes at tinyurl.com/PDN-PTAthleticClub.
“We desperately need your help in raising $200,000 to cover ongoing rent, insurance, taxes, utilities and a limited payroll for a few key employees.”
Friedman was the first to contribute. Ninety-five other donors have followed, with gifts ranging from $20 to $1,000. By Monday afternoon, the total had reached $20,540.
“This isn’t just about me,” Hoffmann said, standing in the upstairs free-weights room on a recent morning.
“This is my investment in the club, my investment to the community.
“The club looks and feels like I always wanted it to,” only without members.
“We’ll have to literally start over, literally crawl our way back against a stiff wind,” when PTAC is permitted to open, she said.
“We’ll be starting completely from scratch on so many levels.”
Hoffmann said the way to cope with that reality is to focus on what she can do right now. That includes more work on the club and time spent on her other passions. A horsewoman, she goes riding — and hopes to develop a riding business she said is an outdoor fitness activity well-suited to COVID-19 safety protocols. She also raises livestock, and she wants to continue that as well.
The club used to help fund those pursuits.
Since the GoFundMe campaign began, Hoffmann’s friends and customers have stepped forward.
“It is in the spirit of enlightened self-interest that I think it important to donate,” Joan Becker wrote on the PTAC page, while others echoed her desire to come back and work out.
“She has physically labored to maintain and renovate the gym that hundreds of people (especially older adults) in our community rely on for their physical and emotional health,” noted Tanya Barnett, who got to know Hoffmann when both worked with the local 4-H program.
Amid the state’s struggles with the pandemic, “the fitness industry was left by the wayside,” Hoffmann said, adding her club isn’t only about equipment and the old brick structure.
“This has been a connection place, for people,” she said.
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Jefferson County senior reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3509 or durbanidelapaz@peninsuladailynews.com.
