Fitness Businesses Weigh In on Boardwalk-less Spring

 
For some fitness- and recreation-related businesses in Long Beach, a spring and summer without a full boardwalk spells uncertainty and cautiousness; for others it poses potential opportunities.

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Each summer out-of-towners account for about 70 percent of bike rentals at Long Beach Cycle. “You have a lot of tourists come in for rentals to ride on the boardwalk,” said Herman Ojeda, manager of the bike shop at 755 E. Park Ave.

While sections of the boardwalk would be built as the season progresses, starting roughly between National and Long Beach Boulevards, a completed structure probably isn’t likely until fall, engineers overseeing the project have said.  

Long Beach Cycle sustained flooding during Hurricane Sandy in late October and reopened about six weeks later, but since then “business has been very slow,” Ojeda said.

How exactly business plays out this summer remains to be seen, but he said it’s predicated on sales this spring.

“We’re still not sure because the weather plays a big picture,” Ojeda said last week. “It’s April and it’s still 40 degrees.”

While the bike shop takes a wait-and-see approach this spring, Synergy, a gym in the middle of town, sees an opportunity in a boardwalk-less Long Beach.

“Our business should excel,” said Patrick Hegarty, co-owner of Synergy, a 12,000-square-foot facility that is divided into three units on West Park Avenue.

Hegarty and his partners are redeveloping one of the smaller, mostly-unused units, equipping it with an additional 20 treadmill-like cardio machines and a juice bar. The gym will also feature 30 new spin stationary bikes that represent five more than before the storm.

“In a way not having a boardwalk is beneficial to us, in that we’re a benefit to the residents of Long Beach looking for a place to exercise,” Hegarty said.

Synergy’s main gym, at 226 W. Park Ave., suffered minimal damage during Sandy, thanks to the many sandbags the owners stacked outside their doors beforehand, and the gym reopened Nov. 18. The clients who were displaced outside of Long Beach after Sandy are gradually returning and Synergy is offering them discounts. Hegarty has other ideas he hopes to implement to help boost business this spring and summer.

“I’m thinking of doing classes on the beach, with the proper permits, to give the feeling of exercising outdoors” he said.

A half-block away at Maritime Surf, a surf shop at 301 W. Park Ave., co-owner Mike Flammer is concerned, not so much with the lack of a boardwalk, but rather a lack of all things on or surrounding it.

“Having a boardwalk is important but it’s having things like the bathrooms and showers that concern me more,” said Flammer, who lost about 75 percent of his inventory in the hurricane and was forced to close for more than three months. During that time the City Council did vote to have portable bathrooms installed on the beach this summer.

Meanwhile, Flammer said many of his out-of-town customers have told him that it might be worth it for them to trek to the Rockaways instead, where they won’t have to pay to get on the beach to surf and mass transportation there is cheaper than travelling to Long Beach.

While Flammer’s shop serves surfers and other ocean-goers, he recognizes the boardwalk by itself attracts many day-trippers, as he calls them, and without a full boardwalk this summer he believes many are more likely to spend their time and money elsewhere, which means less pedestrian traffic for businesses in town.

“I’m trying to optimistic but there’s really no telling what to expect,” he said. “We’re planning more or less as we would for any summer. But it’s a huge question mark for us.”

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