After nearly 40 years, a mainstay for south Eugene fitness enthusiasts is closing its doors this week.
In Shape Athletic Club, formerly Southside Fitness, is a full-service gym with group fitness classes, cardio, and weight rooms. It's been in operation since 1985.
Melisa Nicol has owned In Shape since 2000. She said the difficult decision to close the gym was purely financial. After the announcement was made last month, Nicol said she was uplifted by stories from long time members.
“Somebody came in and told me how it changed their life, and so those stories are definitely getting me through this difficult time,” Nicol told KLCC. “I look forward to looking back and just being grateful for the 25 years. Right now it’s a process and right now there’s a lot of sadness for a lot of people, but as long as this community can keep moving in whatever direction keeps them healthy, that’s what’s important to me and to In Shape.”
In Shape weathered the COVID-19 pandemic, when gyms, especially smaller facilities, were forced to temporarily close.
“We got hit really hard, but we did make it through COVID, thanks to our loyal members and some other programs,” Nicol said.
But when the new location of the Eugene YMCA opened nearby in 2023, Nicol said In Shape was still fighting to come back to where their membership status was before the pandemic.
“We had another facility that opened in really close proximity- and a beautiful facility- that really just devastated part of our membership and then also took away prospects for new memberships coming in,” she said. With lower membership and increasing costs of running a gym, “it just didn't, didn't feel viable any longer.”
Nicol also said she was proud that In Shape was a woman-owned business since its original inception. To her knowledge, the three previous owners were all women, with the tenure of ownership being three to five years before Nicol took over in 2000.
When she first bought the gym, she said she was often misconstrued as “a front desk associate, or maybe the owner's wife or the owner's daughter, or anything but the owner,” said Nicol.
The fitness industry can be fickle. “Usually you don't see a tenure quite as long unless it's a corporate, a big box kind of gym, so to be a sole proprietor in this industry for this long, it feels really amazing,” said Nicol.
Nicol said her staff was at the heart of In Shape, and while turnover in the gym industry can be high, many of the instructors taught at In Shape for decades.
Wednesday, Dec. 18 is In Shape’s final day of operation.
