There was a lot of social media buzz over the weekend due to Kingwest Fitness’ abrupt closing late Friday/early Saturday. Reasons for the closing are being blamed on Lifetime Development’s new condo proposal.
Lifetime Developments owns the Liberty Market Building and were, therefore, Kingwest Fitness’ landlord. According to the gym’s ownership. a 2-3 year deadline was given to the gym owners which essentially meant that the owners would be unable to recoup the financial investment made in the gym. The owners made an unsuccessful attempt to renegotiate their lease based on this new timeline and then stopped making their rent payments. As a result, the doors were locked late Friday night and a Bailiff’s letter was posted on the door.
The info above was based on a description we read on the Kingwest Fitness Facebook thread, as posted by the gym representative. It appears that the Facebook page has been deactivated at the time of this writing. We cannot verify the accuracy of this information at this time.
Sad news for Liberty Village and sad news for me personally. I was a member and enjoyed the gym.
For those members who were locked out, there seems to be some cooperation between Kingwest Fitness and 99 Sudbury and former KWF members are being told that their memberships will be honoured at 99 Sudbury. Details are scarce at this point.
There’s always Goodlife!
Michael Camber
uh oh. that means 99 will be suddenly packed?
Please use our free week pass offer. Contact me, Helene, directly at [email protected]
All classes are included and towel services. We offer month to month memberships without annual contract or initiation fees.
Although it was sad to hear about this, my staff and I at GoodLife are looking forward to welcoming former King West Fitness members into our club.
Currently we are offering $0 to join, your first 4 weeks free and an extended no-risk 30 Day Money-back Guarantee (for former KW members only) on new membership activations. This offer will be in effect until November 15, 2012.
If you have any questions at all, feel free to email me directly at [email protected]
Looking forward to meeting lots of you, George.
Great, I purchase a membership and get an email about the gym closing 3 days later. Not very happy about being sold a membership when they knew this was happening.
Any confirmation on 99 Sudbury honouring KWF members?
So sad. I quit King/Lib Goodlife because it has so poorly managed capacity through the growth of Liberty Village – King West Fitness was such a fab spot. I hope that they will find a new location!
Yikes ahahaha yeah looks like 99 is about to get a lot busier!
Ahaha ah well, it’s a great gym—they deserve the business.
So the more the merrier … unless you’re a fan of the squat cage.
It looks like 99 Sudbury will honour the same rate as offered by Kingwest Fitness for the people who were paying month to month but not necessarily for people who paid their full membership for the year. I still have 4 mths left on my contract and I don’t think 99 Sudbury will honour that.
Funny thing is I was a founding member of 99 Sudbury, been using that gym since the beginning…then decided to change to KWF b/c it’s a 2 min walk from my place only to have them shut down.
BTW – if you paid the membership by Visa, they will help you recoup some of the losses.
I am one of the tenants for a store in liberty market building and know for a fact this so-called 2-3 year timeline is not true. In fact, there was just a 5 year contract signed this week for another unit in the building with a No Demolition clause in it.
Sad to see Kingwest Fitness go, but the rumors about the 2-3 year condo build are untrue and the record needs to be set straight. The rest of the shops are there to stay!
So Kingwest Fitness is scamming people
The reality of the situation is that KWF was horribly mismanaged . The space was huge and therefore the rent was very high. If you had been to the gym you could see that even during the so called busy hours the gym was never close to being full. While some people believe the owners are “nice” guys they ultimately proved to be incompetent and basically ran the gym into the ground. Even if the condo rumours are true it still doesn’t explain why they didn’t pay last months rent. These guys are just not very bright or particularly smart business men. We are still waiting on the promised steam room and completed showers. The worst part is the members and personal training clients that lost their money. So next time you see Kevin Knott ride through Liberty Village on his new motorcycle know that you helped pay for that and will never get you money back.
If you don’t have any money then you can’t pay your rent and if you can’t pay your rent then the landlord kicks you out. Simple as that.
From what I know- kingwest did try to sign a new lease with a no demolition clause-was not accepted. Others in the building may have signed a new deal, but that’s not part of the building that they are looking to demo.
Not here to back anyone up, but if this is the case then what would you have them do? Continue to run a business that in the end would not have paid off?
Sucks, yes it does! I was part of this club since 2004-that’s right, before it opened. Hate the fact it all went down this way.
Jim, by the way. Rent was paid all of the time. It’s only the last month that was not paid as they owners felt screwed.
Everyone, please remember that their are 2 sides to every story.
Do I blame the landlord for doing this NO! It’s business, he will stand to make a lot of money.
I just wish he didn’t have to knock it down. Reall history in that building.
Again, it all sucks! No winners in this , other then the development company.
99 Sudbury- be aware, this is not what you think it is. You’ll soon realize how good we all had it at king west fitness.
Casalife seems to be doing just fine
I am among many of the (now) former members of King West Fitness. I moved into the area about 2 years ago and first toured the Goodlife across the street, but decided on KWF, based on what I had heard about the crowds at Goodlife. Boy do I regret that now. I have since switched to Goodlife, and see many former KWF members there as well. And I’m sure there are many more to come. As I’ve told many people, there was always something a bit “off” about KWF, but I could never put my finger on it. Things never seemed like they were on the up and up. Never mind the fact that it took 6 months to renovate the showers or 3 months to replace the tvs. The trainers seemed top notch, although I really didn’t have a lot of interaction with them. Now the fact that people were sold year-long memberships just days before the closing is completely unethical. It would be my understand that if KWF closed within 10 days of the people signing the contract, then KWF would be in violation of the Consumer Protection Act of 2002. If I was out more $$ than I am, I would consider contacting some sort of District Attorney, etc…However, I know that there are many people out well over $1000 based on prepaid membership dues combined with prepaid personal training. I’ve already contacted my credit card company to dispute my membership charge, and get back the prorated amount that is owed to me. I love Jim’s comment above about the owner’s new motorcycle. As a matter of fact, I saw him riding through yesterday and thought to myself “if he sold that motorcycle, how much money could he refund to people he flat out robbed?” I’m glad that this blog is here. I found it so classy that they took down their Facebook page and official website. I’m surprised the Twitter account is still up and running – although that is probably subject to change any minute. FYI folks, I’ve been to the Goodlife 4 nights this week during “peak” time (4:00pm and on) and I found the “crowd” to be quite manageable. Hopefully more people will come across this article and continue to comment. I’m interested to see everyone else’s situation.
I spoke with an ex-employee of KWF the other day. According to him, employees are owed wages and KWF is still withdrawing monthly membership dues from people who pay on a monthly basis.
BTW – 99 sudbury is not honouring the paid in full contracts unless you buy a membership.
They mentioned that they would be halting all payments from their members but then a few days later they charged me for another month. I am disappointed it has come down to this, with no respect shown to the clients.
+1 on the brand new Motorcycle. Last time I checked a new Harley Davidson will set you back 20k and up.
Don’t worry, this will all come back to bite them in the ass. Good try at pinning the blame on the landlord though KWF. I hope the bank enjoys repossessing your slightly used Harley, and your cars, and your house….
The possible development of the area is nothing more than a handy scapegoat for KWF. Fact of the matter is they were behind on several months of rent. They took membership payments knowing full well an eviction was being served. The cherry on the cake here is that KWF set themselves up for a nice Defamation case from the landlord….a landlord with deep pockets.
from Blog TO:
“Brian Brown of Lifetime Developments revealed Kevin Knott, one of several vocal campaigners against the project, is the former leaseholder of KingWest Fitness, a company Brown says was booted from its location beside Casalife for backed rent, not as a result of the condo proposal.”
Ouch, I feel bad about some members being out prepaid yearly memberships. I have been a month to month payment member for quite some time and I have to agree with K regarding the additional monthly deduction after the notification of KWF’s closing. I had always suspected the potential of KWF’s closing and in hindsight, the disgruntled perspectives of some of the employees now makes sense. Based on the handling of the situation, I would tend to side with Jim’s opinions.
Bang Fitness is located at Queen and Bathurst. It’s structured a bit differently than most other fitness clubs – it has program design and coaching integrated into its membership.
If you’re looking for a new gym and would like to try something different, we’d be very happy to set up a trial month for former Kingwest members. You can contact us at [email protected] or by calling 416.777.2264
Thanks,
Bang Fitness Staff
By the way, we’ll be having our grand re-opening on November 17th, from 11:00-3:00 with a bunch of free classes, snacks and an 18-car demolition derby*
Please join us!
http://www.facebook.com/events/503239346367022/
*there will be no 18-car demolition derby
You can find kevin at the dollar store in liberty, which he also owns. It’s all the same building, why wouldn’t he be worried about his Dollar Store with More being shut down also??? Wouldn’t want to be him for the next few years… lives in liberty, owns another business in liberty….
Sympathy is going to be hard to come by after cheating that many people out of money days or weeks before they KNEW they where not going to pay rent and eventually close the doors. Whether staff know or not, its still a bunch of owners sitting back with grins on their faces trying to recoup a few bucks before giving the big middle finger to the members and staff.
This sucks. I was just about to get a membership there (I was at Cross Fit in LV but and injury means I can’t do Crossfit for a while.) Warning – 99 Sudbury sucks. The equipment is in terrible repair, there is mould in the sauna and there were dirty socks in a locker for months and the lead trainer blasts AC/DC when he’s in the gym so loud you can’t even hear your own music and trainers are always shouting to be heard by their clients. I got a trial membership there – and after asking if noise could be turned down and being blown off and basically told to suck it up as the other members loved it – i thought WTF Half the time I was the only person in the gym so this was clearly a lie – HE loved it. No respect for clients. The only selling point to 99 is there was NO ONE THERE. Which, apparently, is about to change. I wish there were a BANG taking over the king fitness space – they’re really really expensive and have limited options but are worth the money from what I have experienced. It’s just too far away for me.
I was a “staff member” there at one point. They have been haemorrhaging money since day 1. Kevin has no clue on how to run a gym and wanted it to be his party hq with all the ridiculous events. As someone who spent a long time in the industry he was not interested in doing anything to get the gym moving forward as a business. This was a long time coming. I’m surprised it took this long. There was more than once the doors were almost locked and saved at the last minute.
I was disappointed when this all happened because anyone can have a rough spell. There are many businesses that have come and gone in LV and I figured that this was just another victim. I felt very bad for the owners. Just because your business fails doesn’t make you a bad person. What makes you a bad person is walking around pretending like nothing is wrong or even being rude to your neighbours when the reality is that have ripped a lot of them off. I have witnessed this first hand.
The former owner of KWF and his wife also have the Dollar store where I now refuse to go for a few reasons: 1) They stole from me by charging my CC after they closed. 2) There is nothing in that dollar store that is a dollar.
I have to admit that the straw that broke this camel’s back (reason for writing this) was when I saw the owner of the dollar store working out at the gym at the tower on Lynn Williams over Day and Night Cafe when she doesn’t live there.
This couple appears to think that they don’t have to follow the rules for some reason. Ripping off workers, landlords and clients at the gym, misleading people with over priced items at their store and getting someone to sneak them into a private gym to save them from paying another gym’s membership (look up hypocrite), in order to have the fancy toys, cloths and home. They may be playing by the legal book but their moral compass needs to be readjusted.
I feel bad for the employees and the clients that paid in advance, and hope that they don’t continue to support this behavior by buying things at the dollar store or even a house from the owner of the store (she is also a real estate agent on the side).
There is nothing wrong with admitting defeat but there is definitely something wrong with stealing people’s money then flaunting, for everyone to see, how you are senselessly spending it.
+1 H
Well said.
For what it’s worth, I was able to get my credit card company (AMEX) to reverse the remaining about of my pre-paid membership. I don’t know if anyone else has had luck with that or not. If you paid with a CC, keep trying. I think there is a limit on the amount of time you can file a dispute.
So wait…KWF wasn’t raking in massive amounts of $$$ from all of those ridiculous fashion/movie events? 🙂
Check out how much I ripped people off:
http://www.slf.ca/pdfs/KING_WEST_FITNESS_INC.pdf
Wow nice to see that KWF stiffed a whole bunch of people to the collective total of over 12 million dollars. My favorite creditor is #15, the Canada Revenue Agency….I had no idea it was possible to stick it to the government AND get away with it. Very classy, folks, very classy.
Looked at the link above. Kevin Knott has listed himself as being owed $225,283 from King West Fitness. A real class act.
The managers of kingwest are crooks just as the owner is. What goes around comes around GM.
WOW Kevin!! Your right, YOU DID rip off a whole lot of people…..Jerkoff