A number of very positive changes and upgrades are in process at Kahler Glen Athlec Club. We received the following email update from Scott Peyree who is leading this effort.
From Scott: As a quick introduction, my name is Scott Peyree, and my company Kahler Mountain Club will soon be taking over the Kahler Glen Athletic Club operations. I’m very excited to be taking over the athletic club operations and pushing hard to get the doors reopened ASAP! Please excuse the length of this email, but I’d like to provide a brief history of how we got to where we are today:
As many, but probably not all of you know, I am in the process of doing diligence on additional development in the Kahler Glen community. This will not only include building additional property and a new clubhouse, but will also include the consolidation of the business operations – mainly being the athletic club, golf, and lodging operations. My wife, kids, and dogs pretty much lived up in Kahler full time during the pandemic and grew to love everything that Kahler has to offer, and I believe the community has an outstanding amount of potential to be even better, which includes the athletic club.
I have been working closely with Fred Guimond and a number of long-time members/operators of the athletic club. I agreed with the group that I would take over all expenses of maintaining the building and making the mortgage payments during my development diligence so that a) it would not be a burden to the non-profit or Kahler community; and b) I can avoid the bank foreclosing and/or the building going into disrepair prior to my officially purchasing the assets.
I’m really excited about the long-term direction of the club. I’m planning on doing a complete remodel/upgrade of the facilities. Including larger and better equipped gym, additional space for workout classes, better facilities for spa services, golf simulators, more staffing and services, ect. We want the club to not only be a place for working out and swimming, but also a place of community where the neighbors will be able to spend time together. But all of this won’t happen overnight – it’s going to take time to design and plan out – so in the meantime it is my strong desire for the members and community at large to get the club opened ASAP.
I’ve been working closely with Karen Bauder who runs the golf operations. I’d like to give her a lot of credit for stepping up to help get this thing back up and running. She’s found employees to provide 40 hours/week of staffing and is coordinating, alongside a number of longtime members, a lot of the long overdue maintenance required to get the club to a point where we can open the doors.
I’ve been analyzing the budget to determine what it would take financially to get the club up and running. The core cost of mortgage and absolute basic maintenance on the building is about $4K/month – which is what I’ve agreed to cover during the diligence period. To get the club up to full operational status will take an additional $10K/month as well as some significant upfront expenses to take care of needed upgrades/maintenance that has been put on hold the past year.
I’m fine taking care of the $4k/month and upfront maintenance expenses, but in order to reopen the club to members, I need to be comfortable covering that additional $10K/month in operating expenses. My ask for the members is very basic – a simple month-to-month payment. No sign up fee. No long term commitment. I’m going to have a very basic membership plan during this interim period before we start remodeling (which is probably at least a year out) – $75/month for singles, $100 for couples, $125 for families. Assuming I can get enough people to commit we can probably have the club back open inside of a few weeks!
If we are able to get enough people to sign up that we can make in excess of $10K/month, my first desire would be to reimburse a number of the longtime club members who have stepped up and gone out of pocket to make sure this thing hasn’t imploded into the ground over the past 6 months. After that I’d obviously like to recoup some of my expenses and be able to run as close to break even as possible.
So my first ask of everyone is please reply and let me know if you are ready and willing to sign back up for the club if we reopen. We would start charging the monthly fee in August, but our hope is to open the doors before then. If you would like to sign up, please let me know if you’ll be doing the single/couple/family plan. We’ll reach out with membership agreements in the near future.
Regards,
Scott Peyree speyree@kahlermountainclub.com
Kahler Mountain Club